Mouchette

One of the great mavericks of French literature Georges Bernanos combined raw realism with a spiritual focus of visionary intensity. Mouchette stands with his celebrated <i>Diary of a Country Priest</i> as the perfection of his singular art. <p/>Nothing but a little savage is how the village school-teacher describes fourteen-year-old Mouchette and that view is echoed by every right-thinking local citizen. Mouchette herself doesn't bother to contradict it; ragged foulmouthed dirt-poor a born liar and loser she knows herself to be in the words of the story alone completely alone against everyone. Hers is a tale of tragic solitude in which despair and salvation appear to be inextricably intertwined. <p/>Bernanos uncompromising genius was a powerful inspiration to Flannery O'Connor and <i>Mouchette</i> was the source of a celebrated movie by Robert Bresson.