Just perfect...

Great Film overall

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

Mouchette is a young girl living in the country. Her mother is dying and her father does not take care of her. Mouchette remains silent in the face of the humiliations she undergoes. One night in a wood, she meets Arsene, the village poacher, who thinks he has just killed the local policeman. He tries to use Mouchette to build an alibi.Robert Bresson knows how to make anything look beautiful. I always feel that black and white captures a scene better than color ever will, especially if the director (or cinematographer) knows how to really use the light and shadow Bresson gets it, and has always gotten it. He also seems to know ho to use children without exploiting them or making them overly sympathetic characters. The character of Mouchette is in many ways the queen of her own world... even if it may not be the best world.

My Bresson baptism, with Mouchette: and it underwhelms. I'm sure I picked up Mouchette on strong recommendations: but it backfired.Shot in black and white (1967), perhaps to accentuate the despair and and hopelessness of the theme, is a tactical mistake. I'm sure there are things you can do with black and white to accentuate particular objects, emotions, situations: as in Hitchcock's movies. Here, we are treated to a washed out monotone of colour which does nothing for the many scenes shot in apparently verdant woods. Contrast was poor throughout, sharpness non existent: colour was a mismanagement.Nadine Nortier is miscast as Mouchette. She has presence, but no qualia. Utterly emotionless throughout, even when she is crying, less of an enigma and more of a non person. What is she thinking, what is she about, what makes her tick? The blank canvass of her acting output throws up no answers. Marie Cardinal as her mother, in only a few short scenes with few words does a much better job of fleshing out a character: we, as the audience, get what she is about: a disillusioned, weary woman: physically and spiritually ill. Mistreated by life and men, she is ready to depart this life. Her agony , in fact her life story is played out beautifully in an understated way by Cardinal. Nortier does not come even close with her performance.Mouchette is supposed to be a suffering martyr of some kind, but 'm not sure why. Yes, the family is poor, mum is sick and dad goes out at night to deal in contraband, but is that enough to warp your mind and deaden your soul? Why does she refuse to sing in school and throw mud at her schoolmates? Bresson is just sloppy here: a few more psychological angle shots wouldn't have been amis, just to really set the background on Mouchette's despair.A plot development sees Mouchette out in the woods late at night, huddled under a tree. She is found by Arsene, the village daredevil, who first 'rescues' her from the rain, then walks her back to the village, and to his house, where a little incongruously because there was no build up to this, rapes her. And Mouchette likes it. In fact the next day she alludes to him as 'her lover'. Yes, she is sadly misused here.Then, one hour into the film, a host of secondary characters start popping up for the first time. Mouchette's mother dies on the morning after her rape, and as Mouchette walks about town to get milk, various personages make an appearance. All of them presume to help her with hand me downs and end up calling her a slut and wicked. For no particular reason at all. This grated on my nerves a bit: first, the glut of personalities piled up all at once: what about pacing, Bresson? Then, their allegations towards Mouchette. If she is indeed a slut, why weren't we shown it, why wasn't it alluded before: why spring it up out of the blue. Of course, this may be a subtle reference to the fact Mouchette enjoyed her rape, but of course the townfolk can't know this. The only thing this film had going for it is the ending. As Mouchette tumbles down a river bank and literally plops into the river, the camera stays put for about thirty seconds on the water, before fading out. Does Mouchette resurface, or is she dead?

'Mouchette' is a film shot simplistically and delicately, which captures the angst and despair of a 14 year old girl.The opening sequence entails the capture of a bird in a poachers trap; we witness long length shots and intense close-ups of a gamekeeper spying on the poacher. Only natural sounds of footsteps and rustling trees are audible. Instantly, we could argue this unpleasant image of the trapped bird, parallels the entrapment of Mouchette in her abandoned life. Interestingly the poacher in these scenes, Arsene, later traps Mouchette in luring her into a false sense of security, reinforcing his role as a poacher.From the beginning, Bresson's attention to realistic natural diegetic sounds emulates Mouchette's destitute, impoverished lifestyle. This technique also enables the audience to focus primarily on the visuals. Dialogue is dispersed through the film and appears in only brief quantities. The raw stark shots of Mouchette's struggle, for example, tending to her mother, sitting alone in the forest and walking home alone after school contrast with the brief moment at the funfair in which she evades the reality of her life. I could not help but differentiate these busy, active shots, accompanied by an upbeat diegetic soundtrack and close-ups of Mouchette's happiness from her solidarity before and after this sequence. This moment, the only point where we see her physically and emotionally content, is taken from her suddenly and becomes one of our first reflections on our sympathy for her. Added to this are the recurring medium close-ups of Mouchette's frown, which I found prominent when reflecting on the film.I think many people who have seen 'Mouchette' will note that although the closing sequence is sudden and perhaps bleak, you cannot help feeling a sense of catharsis due to the ending of Mouchette's suffering.

A beautiful film with superb photography. The story of a young girl who has to care for a dying mother in a small village in France.She is shunned by everyone. She is raped and used and rejected.But her simple innocence and beauty shines through. It is like Fat Girl a film without much faith in humanity without hope. The scenes of the poacher and the hunter the girl lost in the woods in the storm are breathtaking.The bullying by her school teacher and followed by her beautiful singing where great. Her simple goodness and total exclusion is heart wrenching.The ending like in Fat Girl is shocking but fitting. Good film.