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Bresson is clearly not a film-maker for everybody, but he has pursued his own way remorse-
lessly for the best part of 40 years and he has a very faithful audience. His literary adaptations -
from Giraudoux, Diderot, Bernanos and Dostoevsky - are often merely points of departure.
For him, 'the most important ideas in a film are the most hidden', so the watcher has to look hard
to find them. It is not an easy process but it is a rewarding one since you feel he has a profound
understanding of what he is talking about.
His films have little or nothing to do with those of the French New Wave but a lot to do with his
Catholic background and the fact that he spent 18 months in a German prison camp during the
Second World War. Prison also features 'Les Anges du Péché', 'Un Condamné à Mort s'est
Echappé' and 'The Trial of Joan of Arc'. And most of his central characters seem imprisoned, if
only in the soul, either through their misfortunes or because society has made it inevitable. If this
seems a gloomy process through which to journey, there are always points in his films where re-
demption and exaltation prevent glumness.
- Derek Malcolm, The Guardian, 19 August 1999.
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