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Director Jean-Pierre Melville, who had inspired the French New Wave directors with his minimalist film noir Bob le Flambeur, took a career detour to make Léon Morin, Priest. Despite its title, the film focuses on a woman character (unusual for Melville, whose films are typically all about men) and the ongoing infatuation she has, along with several women friends, with her provincial town's hot young priest. Melville, who fought in the Resistance during WWII, is primarily interested in recreating the emotional and moral challenges of living in France during the Occupation, and the priest, surprisingly played by Jean-Paul Belmondo, is the film's MacGuffin, the elusive, desirable thing that drives the plot. Belmondo had become a hot property from his role as an impulsive, Bogart-worshiping criminal in the previous year's Breathless, and Melville, always short on funding, may have chosen Belmondo for this uncharacteristic part to attract investors. Or perhaps Melville simply wanted an especially cool and sexy actor to play this priest that women find so irresistible. Bemondo is clearly out of his element in this part, however. In his cassock he bears a strong resemblance to Ringo Starr wearing one of his early 60s tailored suits. Belmondo rattles off responses to all sorts of theological questions like a studious, unreflecting schoolboy, far too confidently for someone with his insider's view of the horrors of German Occupation as people constantly come to him for help. We never do know what makes Father Léon tick, but it doesn't really matter. Instead we see just how horrible the Occupation was for regular people, watching helplessly as their friends are rounded up, having to secretly get their half-Jewish children baptized, and accepting huge risks taking in families on the run from the Nazis. There is the moral dilemma of whether cooperating with the occupiers is better in the long run, and concerns over what happens later if you choose the wrong side. And many women are alone, their husbands either dead or in hiding. Small wonder this handsome young priest, so calmly firm in his faith in the midst of so much chaos, is such a magnet for the women of this town. Emmanuelle Riva is excellent as Barny, the widow of a Jewish husband with a young daughter, raised Catholic but now atheist and communist in her beliefs. Seeing her world upended by the Occupation, she goes to confession to give the seemingly useless Church a piece of her mind, starting with "Religion is the opium of the people." But her confessor Léon surprises her by agreeing with her on many points, and gets an ongoing dialogue started with her that lasts throughout the film. Gradually, however, she discovers several other women are also seeing Father Léon as well, and that he apparently only talks to women, using whatever approach works best with each one. It is never clear whether he is simply an honest man of God who has a special knack for converting the ladies, or if he enjoys exerting power over them in revenge for his vows of chastity. At the end, new American occupiers have taken over, the priest has been reassigned to the provinces (where his theological subtleties will be useless), and Barny is returning to Paris. Everyone must now move on with their lives as best they can.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
03/13/23
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Christopher B
Another wonderfully directed and filmed piece from Melville featuring top-rate performances from Belmondo and Riva. A wonderfully eerie and depraved setting set the tone of the morally challenging film and are beautifully captured by Melville and lived in by the actors. It's a very thought provoking film with many symbolic acts throughout that you may not even notice without referring to the commentary that is part of the Supplements. A great piece from wartime France that showcases the French Resistance and the way of life for the civilians. Highly Recommended, especially if you are a Melville fan!
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
10/20/22
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Audience Member
Önce İtalyanlar, sonra da Almanlar tarafından işgal edilen bir kasabada yaşayan bir dul (eski kocası Yahudi) ile kasabanın Katolik rahibi arasındaki ilişki. Beni sarmadı, meraklısına...
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
01/23/23
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Audience Member
I'm not Christian and what I know about Christianity I know more from media than anything else, so I say this as a sort of disclaimer for my review and interpretation.
This was an interesting movie for a lot of reasons - it gives you a glimpse into that WWII french occupation life, it presents Christianity in a more philosophical than emotional way that's not typically represented on film, and apparently its ideas about Catholicism in general are a bit more radical than you might expect from the 1960s. However, this movie is split between two possible interpretations: a loss of power and then the ra-ra-Catholocism message it seems to turn into by the end.
Barny's husband is dead, her towns being occupied, her daughter is living in the country, and she has nobody except for Leon; her conversion to Catholicism seems to be more about her desire for stability than anything else really. Even that bizarre crush she has on that woman in her office seems to be more about a desire for power; Sabine is in control, she's beautiful, she's confident, especially considering it magically dissipates once Sabine starts to despair. Then once Leon decides to peace out she's totally crushed because he became the staple of her life... which was annoying! I wish the movie had given at least 5 more minutes on what happens to her - its almost like they got so wrapped up in their Catholic promotion they forgot by the end of the film that the main character isn't actually Leon.
As for Leon himself, he's a shitty 26 year old. I got bored by the fact that everything he said was witty and wise and how everybody fawned over him for saying it. He isn't the perfect priest they all praise him to be, he does flirt with the girls and he's also cold and childish half the time. He leads people on most likely because he's also lonely and wants company but he's so married to his profession (quite literally) he ends up having to cockblock himself and move. They could have explored his inner life more too but again they got too wrapped up in the philosophical side - which again, like, WAS interesting but to the emotional detriment of its characters in my opinion.
So watching this as both an atheist and a woman I was mostly bummed out by the character of Barny (and most of the women in general in this film tbh) being too flat. They do touch upon some interesting sexual themes for her that are fairly bold for the early 60s but they never fully explore them. There's some interesting arguments for Catholicism in here but the pro-communist and atheist arguments are weak at best. That alone brings it down from "great" to "good" in my book. Other than that, if you're catholic you'd probably get more out of it. In that way it kind of reminded me of Silence... musings on what makes a true catholic, what is catholicism, etc.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/06/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Even if "Léon Morin, Priest" isn't Jean-Pierre Melville's best work, it is still a rather compelling work from a great French film director.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/04/23
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Audience Member
<i>Note: More than a review, this is a detailed analysis of the ideas that both protagonists have, and the excellent way in which Melville constructed a compelling romantic drama out of it, utilizing the WWII setting in an almost perfect form.</i>
<b>MORIN</b>
Morin is a priest. He is an academic Catholic man, loyal to his vows. His beliefs are contradictory, often carrying some weight of intellectualism over the true doctrine of God's Word, but often criticizing the purely empirical obtention of knowledge, and therefore denying epistemological philosophy as the most proper doctrine to find God in this earthly life. He believes in an Almighty God, but one undecipherable God. His rare mental mixture of the Bible with philosophical speculations of God's existence and personality results in a contradictory amalgamation of ideas about man's perception of the metaphysical, but still holds the idea of faith being capable of sustaining even the contradictoriness of our perception, so he uses this idea to justify himself. More than a true Christian, he is a Catholic priest of limited understanding masqueraded with academic studies trying to fill the holes of what eludes his rationale.
However, he is focused and persistent, willing to convert the hearts of the world to God. He probably witnesses this turmoil of WWII as an opportunity for the world to reconsider its history and turn its face to God once again. He believes in chastity and the purity of the soul, and practices it with true conviction. He believes in a perfect Heaven having several mansions for all different human viewpoints to arrive to a metaphysical consensus, where all humans will finally reach not only God's grace, but also His unlimited scope of things. God, he says, is a "moral certainty", which is one of the most abstract things I have ever heard describing God.
<b>BARNY</b>
She is an atheist. She is also a communist, and a widow with her daughter as the only true family companion. In a personal world with a lack of love, she slowly starts to feel attraction for her boss Sabine Levy, whom she perceives as a woman of angelic beauty and purity, like those women of the Scriptures. Ironically, however, she doesn't believe in the Scriptures.
Well, I actually believe she does, but lives in frustration for not being able to understand and believe in an intangible God.
Moreover, the story takes place during the German occupation of WWII, so she also decides to baptize her daughter as a means of protection. One event leads to another, until she meets the priest, Léon Morin, in what is for her a subconscious attempt of confession, even if she consciously denies it.
<b>BARNY AND MORIN</b>
Barny then decides to start discussing with Morin themes about religion, the human condition and the existence of God. He speaks of an elitist God who loves everybody but keeps certain things in secret for the concept of faith to acquire a meaning. If faith in the intangible wasn't required, then "everybody would believe, and we would already be in Heaven". However, he believes in a God whose omniscient acts represent love for all mankind, but he also places the collective conscience of a Christianized world on top of the power of God over our lives, even if he is the author of all creation.
Given this gigantic wave of obvious contradictoriness, she becomes even more confused, but curious to understand as well. Well, of course, I understand her. Morin was driving me mad with how his ideas were all over the place and cannot connect, but that's his character. Belmondo's performance is truly one of a kind, and one that you wouldn't expect from his more famous aggressive gangster facet. That's when I understood that Melville's intention was to form a romantic drama, like stated in the opening note, rather than focusing on the religious discussions as the main topic. No, this is a drama about two souls of completely different perspectives of the world, even of God.
Why does this "romantic drama" categorization matter? Because Barny listens to Morin, reads his books, tries to believe in God and is converted to Catholicism not because of wanting to meet God, but for two reasons:
a) She was cornered. With no marital love, no family support, confusion because of her attraction to her female boss, atheism, and her increasing feelings towards Morin, she felt cornered. Maybe she took this path as the easiest way to make a sense out of her life. Concurrently, the sociopolitical turmoil of WWII present in the country mirrors her internal disorder and void, so she is also forced to live secluded in her country out of fear of being shot instead of running away.
b) As mentioned, he had intense feelings for Morin.
--
This is Melville at his most dramatically straightforward and emotionally mature. It is no surprise that the film was deprived from 22 minutes of running time for its American release given the treatment of controversial subjects, even if the subjects are as human as they come, and are never treated with a sign of exploitation or disrespect. That talks a lot about the way censors perceive things and make decisions of censorship, an idea that I do not believe in.
The film never drags and is always captivating and even interesting to look at, while we witness two completely different viewpoints about metaphysical subjects to collide, while the tormented feelings of an alone woman intervene in her perception of the world, and in her discussions with the man she now loves. This is really a great film.
94/100
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
01/22/23
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