Mouchette

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This article is about Robert Bresson's film. For the Internet Art Project, see Mouchette.org.

Mouchette
Film poster
Directed by	Robert Bresson
Produced by	Anatole Dauman
Written by	Robert Bresson
Starring	Nadine Nortier Jean-Claude Guilbert Maria Cardinal Paul Hébert
Music by	Jean Wiener Claudio Monteverdi
Cinematography	Ghislain Cloquet
Editing by	Raymond Lamy
Distributed by	UGC / CFDC
Release date(s)	October 26, 1967
Running time	78 min.
Country	France
Language	French
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Mouchette is a 1967 French film directed by Robert Bresson, starring Nadine Nortier, and Jean-Claude Guilbert. It is based on the novel by Georges Bernanos. "Mouchette" means "little fly" in French.

According to Bresson, "Mouchette offers evidence of misery and cruelty. She is found everywhere: wars, concentration camps, tortures, assassinations." Despite the abject wretchedness experienced by the title character, the film, through Bresson's "flat" direction of his non-actors and rhythm created through editing and shot design, raises Mouchette to a kind of sainthood and achieves a spiritual catharsis for the viewer as in the best tragedies.

[edit] Plot

This film tells the story of a young girl whose life is met with countless tragedies. Mouchette (Nadine Nortier) lives in an isolated rural village with her alcoholic father and bed-stricken mother, where she is forced to take care of her infant brother and do all of the housework. At school, Mouchette is mocked and ignored by her classmates and teacher.

One night, during a rainstorm, Mouchette becomes lost in the woods. She is found by Mr. Arsène (Jean-Claude Guilbert), an epileptic game poacher and drunkard. Unsure of whether he had just murdered a man, Arsène convinces Mouchette to stay with him, using her as an alibi. As she tries to leave, he throws her to the floor and rapes her. She returns home, where her sick mother dies in the night. Adding to her misery, she is called a slut by a store clerk who notices scratch marks on her chest, due to her top button being undone (undone buttons at the top of a womans shirt in this time would mean Prostitute). She decides to take her life into her own hands, throwing herself down a hill and into a body of water, and drowning.

[edit] Cast

Actor	Role
Nadine Nortier	Mouchette
Jean-Claude Guilbert	Arsène
Marie Cardinal	Mother
Paul Hebert	Father
Jean Vimenet	Mathieu
Marie Susini	Mathieu's wife
Suzanne Huguenin	Layer Out of the Dead
Marine Trichet	Louisa
Raymonde Chabrun	Grocer

[edit] External links

v • d • e

Films directed by Robert Bresson

Les affaires publiques (1934) • Les Anges du péché (1943) • Les dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945) • Diary of a Country Priest (1951) • A Man Escaped (1956) • Pickpocket (1959) • The Trial of Joan of Arc (1962) • Au hasard Balthazar (1966) • Mouchette (1967) • A Gentle Woman (1969) • Four Nights of a Dreamer (1971) • Lancelot du Lac (1974) • The Devil Probably (1977) • L'argent (1983)