Mouchette

Mouchette (1967) is a French drama by Robert Bresson — watch online on iFILM. Nadine Nortier plays a teenage girl in a rural village with no one in her corner: her mother is dying, her father drinks and hits, her schoolmates taunt her, and the teacher makes a point of humiliating her in front of the class.

Bresson adapted Georges Bernanos' novel using almost entirely non-professional actors — Nortier had never appeared on screen before. The result is a performance that does not perform: her face holds pain rather than displaying it. In eighty-one minutes the film moves through a sequence of small cruelties and one large one, and the camera never looks away. Mouchette competed at the 1967 Berlin Film Festival.

This is hard to watch. But Bresson was not making a film about hopelessness — he was making one about dignity under sustained pressure. Mouchette endures longer than anyone around her expects. Stream Mouchette (1967) online on iFILM.