MovieChat Forums > Journal d'un curé de campagne (1954) Discussion > Please help me understand...

Please help me understand...

posted 11 years ago by chuck-526
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Although I watched it closely a couple times and listened to the commentary on the DVD, there are still several plot points I "don't get". Hopefully someone who understands better can help me:

1) Why did Louise (the governess) come to the church every day? I got hints her real reason wasn't to worship, and in fact may have been rather suspect ...and it obviously wasn't to "repent" of her affair. But what exactly _was_ that real reason?

2) Why the poison pen letter suggesting he leave? What does the writer (Louise, right?) know to make such a serious suggestion?

3) Why did the whole village take such an instant dislike to their new priest? Some reasons were given why they disliked him _later_ after they got to know him a little ...but why the _instant_ dislike?

4) Why did the catechism girls decide to torment him, apparently early on in the class before they'd even had all that much interaction with him? (And was it really early on in the class, or does the film adaptation of the book make it seem earlier than it was?)

5) Why did Louise decide to leave the morning right after the Countess's death, without even waiting for the funeral (or even nagging to obtain her just past wages when the Count was for some reason mildly reluctant to write a check)? She had previously been quite brazen about her affair, seemingly not caring very much who suspected it. Why the sudden change of heart? Or was there some other reason for her to leave the now Countess-free house?

6) Why was Chantal so negative to the priest? I understood that she was rebellious and mercurial, and so had some tendency to be a pain to whoever was around. And I picked up some sort of sexual tension between her and the priest. None of that seems like enough to explain her really bad attitude though. Was there another reason? Why for example did she blab to her father a reversed view of the encounter between the priest and her mother, while only a little while later complimenting the priest on his actions to his face so extravagantly she enquired what his "secret" was?

[–] imdb-4432 11 years ago

I may not be able to provide definitive answers, but I will try my best. One thing to keep in mind is that the whole village is seen from the eyes of the priest, who confesses that he will never know anything of other beings. An intriguing sentence from Bresson's "Notes on the Cinematographer" is, "No psychology (of the kind which discovers only what it can explain)".

1) I reckon she may simply want some time away from the stifling atmosphere of the castle. It may sound contradictory to both continue her affair and feel guilty for it, but I would not completely discard this possibility.

2) The count resented the priest for meddling in his family matters. Louise must have perceived his efforts to use his influence to get the priest transferred. Later in the film, the count's uncle (the canon) says that his nephew moves heaven and earth, and that the bishop considers him to be "a character".

3) It looks like a bad village to begin with. A nice summary I found on the Internet tells that the film "paints a rich, unsparing canvas of the petty spites and secret sins of country life". He lacks social skills and as a true believer, he doesn't have a pragmatic approach to his tasks. "People don't hate your simplicity, it burns them", the canon tells him. Also, one of the first things we see is an old man testing him for monetary reasons.

4) It's not the first day of class. He's questioning them. You don't evaluate how well catechism was learned on the first day. Besides, let's say that Seraphita has family issues.

5) I don't really know that one. Louise had said that the countess treated her well, in contrast to how Chantal treated her. With the countess no more there as some kind of counterweight, Chantal might be a bigger annoyance. She boasts that she gets what she wants, which may perhaps imply that she used the recent turmoil to pressure her father.

6) Chantal is vicious from the start. Her mother seems to care more about her dead child than about her, while her father is hard and will eventually want to send her away. After their encounters, she feels the priest humiliated her. She probably felt that lying about the discussion was revenge, and when she's glad to see the priest leaving the parish, she may feel that toying with him isn't a danger anymore, and she's curious what his next "random" answer will be.