Rating: 
Summary: Oh, the miracle of our empty hands!
Review: "When art merges with mysticism, he can only be patient and as empty as possible" Sontag; from the book Transcendenal Style in Film by Paul Schrader. sums it up for me.The movie is very slow paced . The dialogue and the action mirror each other..a technique Sontag coined "doubling" - to intensify and cast suspicion on the minutia of ordinary every day life. I got my video 15 years ago (along w Pickpocket and Mouchette) by a company called NOW SHOWING. Its very scratchy and you can hear the film running. But I love them anyway. This movie is not for everyone..To some - watching it will be a "Holy Agony"
Rating:
Summary: Best of Bresson
Review: Andrei Tarkovsky said once in an interview that among all the directors who made films of a spiritual nature,(among them Mizoguchi,Bergman, and Kurosawa) Bresson was the most lauded example. This was enough to send me in a frantic hurry to see every one of Bresson's movies. Pickpocket, A Man Escaped, and The Devil Probably were the ones which stood out for me the most, but it was The Diary of a Country Priest,which I saw lastly, that best represented his cinematic vision.(for me) There is almost always a character in his films that takes primacy throughout: Tarkovsky was right in seeing the internal strife of the individual in all of his films, and it is this quality in Diary which creates an absence in the film to which we are given only a glimpse through intricate gestures of the face and by the subtlety of the narrative. The man who played the priest was tremendous not because of any acting, but because of his sheer presence, which was simultaneously an absence. The journal entries are beautifully written and concurrently portray the life of a priest and how any sense of such a Life's selfhood is dispersed into the characters and settings of his periphery. I think this is important because otherwise the film would completely flounder under the weight of an enigma, and the viewer would be completely denied access to such a rich character. It is through his relationship with other members of the parish that we get to know this priest,(not completely I might add) and not simply by the actor who played the role. I really feel that this movie is as a whole the best of Bresson.
Rating: 
Summary: Challenging.
Review: As has been written by many buyers at this site, this film takes a great deal of patience to sit through. It is almost an anti-film, with Bresson's austere, stripped-down style seeming to convey the director's lack of interest in the film medium. That is not to say that the film is shoddily made, it isn't. What I intend is that Bresson (a Catholic himself) is more interested in the 'deeply spiritual' (for want of a more precise phrase) meanings conveyable by the medium than in wanton demonstrations of directoral flair. I feel that the Amazon reviewer is correct in his assertion that "Bresson charts the priest's collapse with a series of brief scenes, a minimalist style that makes the slightest touch of a hand or far-off sound of a dog barking seem magnified in importance." Herein lies my (personal) problem with the film: I am not overly patient and, quite frankly, for me this film was a bit of a drag. That is not to say that I do not have the highest respect for it. It is unquestionably a great work of art; difficult, seemingly impenetrable, open to multiple interpretations. It is (as many have already stated) essential viewing for anyone interested in the rise of the "New Wave", or the history of film generally. The cinematography is frequently astounding, with a paired down lighting style that became popular in the 'cinema verite' genre over a decade later. The narrative stance is just as influential (emulated in countless films up to this day).
In short: a great film, a film of great integrity. Just not my "cup of tea" really.
Rating: 
Summary: The Face of Silence
Review: Bresson set himself a special challenge in making a movie whose central drama is the writing of a diary. How do you make writing exciting on the screen, and how do you film the inwardness of a private journal? Bresson approaches the problem by filling the screen with Laydu's starved, haunting face at every opportunity. Plot, dialogue and acting take a back seat to the actor's troubled expressions, which Bresson shoots from a number of dramatic angles, especially the zoom-in close-up. While this does a lot to build atmosphere, it also left huge holes in my understanding of this troubled priest and his crisis. I found myself getting bored at yet another seemingly aimless scene where Laydu shivers or prays or writes in his journal. Bresson's technique is so effective that I felt I got the point--I had the essence of the character--after the first couple scenes. Still, the images of Laydu on a motorcycle and his midnight collapse in the country are unforgettable. Bresson's ideas about film are sometimes said to be more interesting than the films themselves. I'm not sure that's fair, but it certainly helps to know something about his hopes for making film a language of its own, free from the conventions of the theater, in approaching this quiet & arresting work.
Rating:
Summary: A Film of Intense Luminosity
Review: Bresson's screen adaptation of Bernanos' novel brilliantly plumbs the depths of one soul's quest for redemption. This film is a stirring masterpiece to be viewed time and again even by those to whom the overt religiosity may seem somewhat daunting. As the doomed country priest persecuted to martyrdom by virtually everyone around him, Claude Laydu turns in a remarkably nuanced performance. But it is Bresson's humanism which suffuses the work with its unique ardor and beauty. Needless to say a film of this depth of feeling could never be produced in today's rampantly commercial celluloid world! Forever Diary of a Country Priest will stand as a testament to the amazing creative genius of the peerless French director Robert Bresson.
Rating:
Summary: A Strange and Beautiful Film
Review: Diary of a Country Priest, which made Bresson a name in French cinema, is one of the most perplexing films I've ever seen, despite being one of his earliest. Here he begins developing the minimalistic style that would mature throughout the rest of his unprolific career. The editing is furious and bizarre, unlike anything in any other film. Long, forboding shots of natural settings are closed in by barrages of short, clausterphobic indoor shots. Scenes often begin in the middle, or even after the important dramatic events. What I noticed most of all is that sound often preceeds the image -- and many time the screen is black for several seconds, leaving the viewer to absorb and reflect solely on the audio before the visuals kick in. And, oddly enough, reading of the diary is accompanied by the actual shot of the priest writing, defying the cinematic "rule" that sound isn't needed. Bresson makes full use of all cinematic effects, and listening to this film is as important as watching it. The film is adapted from the French conservative Catholic novelist Bernanos's book of the same title. It is faithful to some degree, but with small, very important departures. A young, sickly priest arrives in a miserable French village and is immediately outcasted by the townspeople. Living off of hard bread and sugared wine (one of many almost too-obvious religious symbols), he desperately tries to make a spiritual difference in the town. The more he tries, however, the more suspicion and scandal is heaped on him by the townspeople, especially the local count, who entertains a mistress while his wife and daughter fall into a bottomless pit of morbidity and hatred. His spiritual failures are echoed by his physical weakness, and at last his constitution gives out. The relationship between the material and the physical is, it seems to me, the most important theme. The Priest's failure to impact the worldly affairs of the town reveals the deep, frustrating relationship between these two worlds. The young Priest's frail physical being is in complete contrast with his saintliness and spiritual strength. The relationship here, too, is complicated. The physical weakness seems to point to a spiritual malady, as his physical isolation increases his spiritual doubt. The memorable performance of the ghastly thin and pale Claude Laydu as the Priest shows us a man, or rather a child, being crushed under these tremendous pressures. This is a film about man's loneliness, hardship, and, most of all, his failures. Another reviewer complains about the quality of this transfer. This surprises me, since Criterion has done an excellent job here. I simply don't see the problems they're referring to. Digitally Obsessed gave it an A grade, saying, "This is really just a stunning transfer, with strong blacks and nuance throughout the black-and-white palette; occasionally things look a little gauzy, but that seems to be due to some inferior source material, and no fault of the transfer." I completely agree. This is a beautiful film, and I'm glad to finally see it on DVD. In many ways it reminds me of Bergman's Winter Light, and its worth noting that Tarkovsky considered this his favorite film (Bergman's a close second). Criterion's transfer is, as usual, striking -- well worth the heavy price tag. The promised extra 11 minutes of deleted scenes didn't materialize, since Bresson's estate made it known that they didn't want the scenes released. This makes the extras seem extremely sparse: a trailer and an audio commentary track by Peter Cowie (which is some times insightful, some times rambling). Nevertheless, ita an extraordinary and unique film that all film lovers should look into.
Rating:
Summary: All is Grace
Review: Extraordinary. I spent my Christmas Eve night watching this little number. Lancelot du Lac, my only other foray into Bresson, was highlu unsatisfactory. The influence of Dostoevsky upon Bernanos/Bresson is unmistakeable. Quite the most moving film I have seen in a long while - and black and white AND subtitled. I don't normally review on these listings, but I felt compelled. Lost for words.
Rating:
Summary: great
Review: god is silent in diary of a country priest but for this very reason ever more present. the film examines the heart of humanity which abhors an emotional vacuum. the priest, morose and socially inept and dying of cancer, works in the name of the lord who never makes his presence felt. the world is gloomy, harsh, and unsparing. yet, thru thorny thickets of life, the priest manages to hold onto his quiet dignity, because spirituality is the one thing that gives him sustenance despite his failure among his fellow beings and the failure of his worldly flesh. this film is doubly difficult for being slow-paced and for its shy incommunicative hero. but few movies make us understand and feel the soul of another person as totally as this masterpiece by bresson.
Rating:
Summary: Confessions of a Priest
Review: I have not yet seen Bresson's earliest film The Ladies of the Bois de Boulogne. That film was based on a Denis Diderot novel and that is not surprising as the Bresson films I have seen all have a distinctive literary quality. Diary Of A Country Priest as well as A Man Esaped(based on a memoir) & Pickpocket(based on a Dostoyevsky story) are all stories narrated to us by the protaganist. Diary of A Country Priest may be the most literary of them all for this film focuses almost exclusively on the thought processes of the priest. He tells his own story as though it were a confession. Bresson was a devout Roman Catholic but you don't have to be religious to appreciate this film because the priest struggles not so much with his faith but with his place in society. The film is quiet and is centered in this priests lonely introspections. He struggles not with faith but with making contact with another human being. Strangely enough his beliefs make him an outcast even to the other priests as they are much more practical minded and see the church as providing a practical social function. The other priests may believe in God but they live in the world comfortably. The young priest though is not practical and his religious feelings make him unable to function on any practical level. He has faith and yet he makes many of the villagers uncomfrotable because he is not a friendly gregarious presence as some of the other preists are but a quiet solemn one. He is really incapable of living on the surface of life and so he is incapable of the friendly kind of chatter that wins friends so when he goes on his rounds from home to home his social awkwardness tends to make people feel a bit uncomfortable. However when one woman has a true crisis of faith he is there for her in a way that one can see that it is this kind of situation he was made for. One of the more interesting and lighter aspects of the story is a friendship that develops between the priest and a young village girl. The girl is a rebel and tells lies and is drawn toward anything but the contemplative kind of life the priest lives and yet the two get along very well. The two both feel isolated from others for different reasons but somehow they provide each other with an interesting kind of company.
I think A Man Escaped & Pickpocket though both also quiet films are probably each more accessible than this one. A Man Escaped is about a resistance fighter who plans an elaborate escape from a Nazi prison, so though quiet and intorospective in its way we know there will eventually be a climax when he makes his attempted escape. Pickpocket is also very introspective but its a study of a criminal mind with plenty of exciting thefts and it ends with promise that the criminal has found something worth living for and so will change his ways. Diary of A Country Priest is quiet all the way through. There is beauty in it but its an austere kind of beauty. This film compared to A Man Escaped & Pickpocket takes a lot more patience and has the least entertainment value but provides the deepest and richest experience. Its a one of a kind film for a very discerning kind of filmgoer. All of Bressons films are made with great care (he took 3-4 years to make each one) and this one any filmgoer will be able to see is the one he put the most care into.
Rating:
Summary: The state of art
Review: Is it necessary to say this is mude film with almost unneccesary subtitles. The superb eloquence in Bresson's language supported on Bernanos'story give us the most intimate portrait of a priest in a lost village.
The poetic images are enriched by a precise dialogue. The multiple reflections derivated from the story are so many that you must see this movie several times , a priest with epic sense in a dark neighborhood. The methapors are everywhere, in the images, in the suggested ideas beyond the visual language.
In this sense nobody could give a best homage to Bresson's art that his friend Tarkovsky, who after knowing him said in Paris these wise words: If we admit that Bresson is the biggest filmaker in the world, then the filmaker who is in the second place, really is in the tenth".
I sincerely recomend to get one work of Andre Bazin titled What's is the cinema? where Bazin (who belonged to Cahiers du Cinema) offers an amazing and exhaustive analysis about this film.
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