Under Satan’s Sun [Sous le Soleil de Satan] ***** (1987, Gérard Depardieu, Jean-Christophe Bouvet, Sandrine Bonnaire, Maurice Pialat) – Classic Movie Review 3632

Director Maurice Pialat’s 1987 study of Catholicism is an unsettling, often brilliant film, which won the 1987 Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival unanimously. But his triumph turned sour when the film was booed. Then, when the audience whistled as Pialat went up to receive the award, he raised his fist and replied in French: ‘I don’t like you either!’

And, though clearly a masterpiece, it is a rigorous, hard work to come to terms with, especially if you’re not French and Catholic. But Gérard Depardieu delivers some of his finest acting as Donissan, a young, doubt-ridden French rural priest tormented by the Devil, who appears in the guise of Le maquignon [the horse dealer]. The Devil is played in a chillingly effective performance by Jean-Christophe Bouvet, effortlessly scene-stealing and upstaging the star in the film’s finest, most striking piece of acting.

As well as writing the adaptation and directing, Pialat also plays, rather loftily though grandly, Depardieu’s superior priest, Menou-Segrais, while Sandrine Bonnaire is impressive as Mouchette, the wild young woman who has killed a man.

Writing with Sylvie Danton [Sylvie Pialat], Pialat turns their spartan, austere, and quite chilly screenplay, adapted from a book by Georges Bernanos, the author of Diary of a Country Priest, into a film worthy of Robert Bresson, on whose style and work Under Satan’s Sun is evidently based. Bresson also directed Diary of a Country Priest (1951) and Mouchette (1967).

Also in the cast are Alain Artur as Cadignan, Yann Dedet as Gallet, Jean-Claude Bourlat as Malorthy, Philippe Pallut as Le carrier and Brigitte Legendre as Mouchette’s mother.

It is shot by Willy Kurant and scored by Henri Dutilleux.

Actor and writer Jean-Christophe Bouvet was born on 24 March 1947 in Paris and is known for Taxi 2 (2000), Marie Antoinette (2006), Taxi 3 (2003) and Taxi 4 (2007). He had his first important role in Paul Vecchiali’s La machine (1977). He is the son of Paulette Bouvet.

http://derekwinnert.com/taxi-2-2000-sami-naceri-frederic-diefenthal-marion-cotillard-jean-christophe-bouvet-classic-movie-review-1385/

http://derekwinnert.com/taxi-3-2003-sami-naceri-frederic-diefenthal-jean-christophe-bouvet-classic-movie-review-1386/