Drama
French (Sous le soleil de Satan)
1987 · Directed by Maurice Pialat · 98 min
Adapted from Georges Bernanos's first novel, this austere French drama follows a young country priest consumed by doubt and self-punishment, and a defiant teenage girl in the same rural district. Slow, severe and unsentimental, it treats faith and evil as physical presences in ordinary daily life.
Why it matters in cinema history
A key late work of French auteur cinema and one of the most uncompromising screen adaptations of Bernanos, placed in the tradition of Bresson and Dreyer's spiritual cinema.
Watch with intention
Watch it as realism pushed to the edge of the supernatural: ordinary rooms, roads and faces carrying an almost unbearable spiritual pressure.
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