La conversa di Belfort

"Les anges du peche" (Angels of sin) is situated in a monastry of the Dominicanesses from Bethany. This order gives women who have been in jail shelter and a second chance. So not al the nuns in this monastry are angels.

Sister Anne Marie however, who has not been in jail but who has joined entirely out of free will, comes close (to being an angel). Anne Marie sees it as her mission to guide one of the most difficult novices, sister Theresa. Sister Theresa has been in jail, but persists that see was innocent. "The innocent cannot forgive" is her motto.

The relationship between the angelic Anne Marie and the frustrated Theresa is the engine of the story. While watching the film I found out that I dit not always symphatize with the angelic one.

Just as Stanley Kubrick, Robert Bresson began his filmcareer as a conventional director, to develop a unique style of his own only after a few films. His debut "Les anges du peche" (1943) together with "Les dames du Bois de Boulogne" (1945) are generally considered as his two conventional movies. This maybe true for "Les anges du peche" as far as the form of the film is considered. "Les anges du peche" has a plot and the characters are played by professional actors. But the theme of the film (guilt, penitence and redemption) is as Bressonian as a theme could be. This theme fully comes into its own during the marvelous ending.

An early work by Bresson, I was lucky enough to see a restored version of the film at Cannes Film Festival this year. It is a fine film, though unfortunately is not so fresh in memory. It is a different sort of film from his later work, lacking both its intense bleakness and its incredible originality. It is nonetheless a very powerful and pure work, which explore the Christian themes of self-sacrifice and redemption with a kind of intense, candid, clear-sighted conviction that one would expect from Bresson. Its story about two women who choose to join a convent, and the different reasons for doing so (one being essentially self-less and the other a selfish who is "on the run")is far more compelling than it might sound. As usual there is a brilliant precision in its film language and narrative, and it conveys its social ambiance and characters (the various nuns mostly) using Bresson's typically stripped-down, modest style which mangages to be engagingly dramatic. For an atheist I also found myself completely engaged by the film's concerns because of the honest, complex and sparing way in which Bresson explored them. He was certainly a very different sort of Christian to most of the ones who come knocking at my door...

Robert Bresson's first feature film, ANGELS OF SIN examines the power of religious piety and sets the story within a Dominican convent where female ex-cons are rehabilitated, and makes great play of a professional cast.

Our angelic protagonist is Sister Anne-Marie (Faure), hailed from a well-to-do family, but resolves to devote herself to the noble work of reforming the sinner, and her prime object is Thérèse (Holt), a prisoner claims that she is innocent, and right upon her release, she takes her revenge to the man who should be accountable for her imprisonment and then joins the convent to dodge the punishment, much to Anne-Marie's delight (who doesn't twig her true purpose), who takes Thérèse under her wing.

But Anne-Marie's beneficent intention and zealous alacrity is brushed aside by Thérèse's penitence-free lying-low stopgap, who in turn, cunningly stokes discords between a naive and vivacious Anne-Marie and the more stolid and jealousy-inflamed ones whose telling opinions of the former are at once self-revealing and acrimonious, after a squabble about a black cat, its fallout has Anne-Marie ousted from the convent, but it takes her sacrificial final act (a bit sickly though) to finalize her lofty mission, redemption is achieved with haunting clarity in its solemn coda.

A rigid exercise in his craft of shaping up a spiritual parable, Bresson's self-disciplined style is in its inchoate state, stunning chiaroscuro and beatific soft focus compositions notwithstanding, the story has been retouched with a sentimental glamor mostly owing to Renée Faure's virtuous performance in the center, an effect soon Bresson would ditch roundly after THE LADIES OF THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE (1945), whereas a fiercely snarky Jany Holt manifests more stamina and inscrutability which is more likely consonant with Bresson's aesthetics.

The internal power play and peer pressure inside a convent is only scuffed without patent virulence, which saves us from another nun-demonizing diatribe and grants Bresson a more sagacious eye on religion and humanity, although ANGELS OF SIN can be hardly extolled as a groundbreaking jumping-off point from a future auteur.

Script and dialogues by the director, Raymond Bruckberger and the playwright Jean Giradoux. Accurate and moving description of a Dominican convent (Bruckberger was a Dominican monk). The story centers on the difficulty of setting precise limits between Christian charity and pride. Unfortunately, the script veers needlessly (and distractingly) into overly dramatic territory midway through the movie. This affects negatively the quality of the acting as well. Music is a little too emphatic at times.

On the positive side, well paced direction and excellent cinematography. This is the first feature film by Bresson and there are some inklings of the minimalist style that would mark his later work.

An absorbing melodrama with great performances from Renée Faure, Sylvie and Jany Holt. Novice nun Anne-Marie, slightly worryingly over-confident, embarks on a fervent mission to redeem a particularly troubled convict, Thérèse.

The script is really strong, and particularly as it portrays the life of the convent. The saints'-wisdom-tombola and the conversation in the laundry are charming, and the ceremonies and submissions quietly powerful.

Anne-Marie's urge to do good becomes increasingly insufferable, and then unhinged to the point where she denounces the sisters' pet cat. The cat, rather than her thankless protégé Thérèse, whose response to Anne-Marie's selfless love, or perhaps her foolish religious pride, comes increasingly to the fore in a deeply moving ending.