Mouchette (EOTWS)

End Of The Week Shorts #35 extract: Mouchette (1967)

On this first watch, I cannot say that I felt Bresson's ascetic imagery and structure amount to much in Mouchette. As we follow a bullied and alienated young girl, we are never allowed to feel the forces of the world acting upon her. Bresson's cinematic spaces thus lack the transcendentally effectual quality seen in films such as Au Hasard Balthazar. And without recognising happenings and themes interacting, the minimalism of Mouchette only alienates, it does not evoke any greater sense of profound meaning that I'm sure Bresson was attempting to project. 

In short, I unfortunately couldn't follow Mouchette as more than a string of actions. Hopefully a re-watch at a later date would reveal more to this film than what I see now.