Not sure how I feel about this film

I had a mixed response to Mouchette. There was much to admire, and in many ways, it IS a more accessible film than Au Hasard Balthazar, if for no other reason than that it sticks with the one character we care about more consistently than in the film about a donkey.

(Spoilers ahead)
I knew the ending in advance, so maybe that plays a part in my reaction, but rather than feeling moved or a having a sense of transcendent spirituality, I mostly felt weary when the film was over. And not in the sense of "gee, I'm glad that's over" but emotionally tired from the tug-of-war Bresson plays with us. Often his distancing techniques kept me from fully feeling the character's emotion and then when I felt I was getting used to it, I was confronted with a scene or a moment in which this distancing feels not only cold but cruel, manipulative in its own way. There are always inherent problems in representing cruely in a film, or any work of art. Spielberg's Schindler's List goes too far in one direction, I think, when it makes me feel the death and pain of its characters so forcefully I almost come to value this pain as an aesthetic experience...certainly a dangerous game to play with the audience (it reminds me of Truffaut's argument that war films can never be completely true to their subject because cinema automatically romanticizes its subject matter).

Bresson would appear to go too far in the other direction, nobly refusing to manipulate us through music or cutting, but allowing this nobility to become its own certain cruelty, when we are stuck regarding Mouchette's abuse from the outside. At least that's how I felt. Intellectually and instinctively I know I do not want her to be raped, and then when she is, I feel a sinking sense of my own apathy. Evan as I make this argument I'm seeing some justification in Bresson's method: perhaps his goal is to make us aware of this very apathy. In some ways, we are made to walk in Mouchette's shoes (I never felt that I didn't understand where she coming from) but in other ways we are put in her tormenter's shoes, often pushed to view her just as coldly and distantly as everyone else in the movie. And the final culprit is Bresson himself...creating a character so hurt and with such potential for identification (this actress has one of the most shattering faces and presences I've ever seen in a character) then standing by somewhat distantly as she experiences pain and isolation and watching casually as she kills herself, staring blankly at the water and pumping up the soundtrack before presenting us with "The End." Interesting how in the course of this questioning, it's come to sound as if I'm justifying Bresson's tactics. Maybe I am. But at the same time, given what I'm constantly told he is trying to do, this reading of the film feels to me more subversive than laudatory. But one things for certain...this film won't be leaving my mind any time soon, and that is an accomplishment.

And one last note: J. Hoberman writes in his review of the film that he has no tolerance for viewers who don't "get" Bresson and that to miss the point of this director is to miss the point of cinema. I'm happy the "grace" of these films is immediately apparent to him, but I stand by the fact that it offers a challenge to most viewers. Ignoring the challenge, turning away from the director on shallow grounds, is certainly worthy of approbation. But grappling with this challenge, considering it, and allowing the possibility that perhaps there is something offensive in Bresson's attitude towards his characters (even if its conceptually brilliant as well) and his use of their suffering to achieve "grace" for the viewer...well, I don't find anything wrong with this questioning.