Leon Morin, Priest movie review (1961)
We rarely see the priest when he isn't in the same room with Barny. Once, during mass, he seems to go out of his way to allow the sleeve of his cassock to brush against her breast. She is sure this is not coincidence. So am I. Dissolve. In general, he has a curious way of touching her. She approaches him in church one day after confession while he's talking with an old lady, and he pushes her roughly aside: "Meet me in my room."
Once as she's entering his room he pushes, not gently, to hurry her from behind. When the office temptress sits provocatively on the edge of his desk with her legs crossed, he rudely pulls down her skirt to cover her knee. A polite man would not lightly treat women in this way. The priest has a license. In a way, the film is about his license. When Barny flirts with him ("Would you marry me if I were a Protestant?"), he reacts with anger. She's calling his bluff. She no longer feels free to visit him.
"Leon Morin, Priest" is a consistently intriguing film, because Melville so cleverly plays with our expectations. There is an undercurrent of sincere religiosity at work. Morin is a sincere priest who is prepared to accept a posting in a remote district where no one will be interested in his books. "I will convert the nations," he says, "starting with this village."
He has persuasive answers to all of Barny's questions about the faith, and you will discover what effect they have. He's a worldly realist. Asking "Are your hands pure?" and learning that she masturbates using a piece of wood, he asks, "Does it hurt?"
Jean-Pierre Melville (1917-1973), born Grumbach, changed his name in admiration of Herman Melville; he was a major 1950s French director who had an important influence on the New Wave. Unable to break into the French studio system after the war, Melville was a pioneering independent who shot on location, had to suspend productions to raise more money to buy film stock, paid poorly and yet under these conditions made his two great first films, "Les Enfants Terribles" (1950) and "Bob le Flambeur" (1956). Yet as Truffaut, Godard and their fellow Wavers swept American art houses, his films were late to be discovered. Since his work has been restored on DVD, he's finding an enthusiastic new following.
A new 35mm print of "Leon Morin, Priest," is in release around the world, and will be shown at the Gene Siskel Film Center Oct. 23-29. The film will be released on DVD by Rialto.
View the trailer:
I have reviewed Melville's "Bob le Flambeur," "Le Doulos" (“The Finger Man,” 1962), "Le Samourai," "L'armée des ombres" (“Army of Shadows,” 1969) and "Le Cercle Rouge" (“The Red Circle,” 1970).
