Mouchette review

Why you can trust 12DOVE Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy.

Like Au Hasard, Balthazar, Robert Bresson's Mouchette is another enigmatic rural parables in which saintliness is located in a most unexpected source.

Although her mother (Cardinal) is terminally ill, the friendless Mouchette (Nortier) is shunned by her drunken father and brother and picked on by spiteful teachers and villagers. When she displays kindness to an epileptic poacher, he responds by raping her...

Mouchette unfolds with little recourse to dialogue as Bresson concentrates on objects, hands, glances and sounds to tell his poignant story. A work steeped in a profound sense of unfathomability, it's a perfect introduction to Bresson's utterly distinctive cinematic universe.

The Total Film team are made up of the finest minds in all of film journalism. They are: Editor Jane Crowther, Deputy Editor Matt Maytum, Reviews Ed Matthew Leyland, News Editor Jordan Farley, and Online Editor Emily Murray. Expect exclusive news, reviews, features, and more from the team behind the smarter movie magazine.