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Sunday, February 24, 2019

FIRST REFORMED (2017)

Writer/director Paul Schrader jonesing like mad for Robert Bresson’s DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST/’51, right down to the diary. Bresson, a curate’s egg of a great filmmaker (‘very good . . . in part’) was a pain, a scold, a prophet of his own making, best in his early works. But even at his most extreme (or worst for non-believers), he always worked from within. Precisely the factor missing in this highly acclaimed, terribly self-conscious masterpiece manqué. Ethan Hawke, hitting character buttons hard enough to gain award traction, suffers from major health issues (he’s pissing blood) and has the sort of raging Catholic Guilt only a Presbyterian Reverend could endure. Divorced after losing his soldier son, he’s cutting off a barely begun affair with a church musician, drinking to excess, tending to a dwindling flock against ‘hipper’ churchly competition, and willfully falling into a relationship with a fresh young widow (Amanda Seyfried) whose husband suicided in spite of Hawke’s attempted intervention. For plot purposes, the husband was something of an eco-terrorist, leaving behind a suicide vest to pump up some last act suspense. Just one of the reasons the film, in spite of mostly static camera shots*; squarish Academy Ratio framing, hushed dialogue and largely functional editing, remains a study in ‘applied’ rather than ‘organic’ severity. The opposite of what Bresson achieves even at his most annoying.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *To his credit, Schrader doesn’t break out of static camera mode until stumbling into a tumbler of scotch and Pepto-Bismol. Something that would give anyone the heaves.

DOUBLE-BILL: Try out Bresson with A MAN ESCAPED/’56 or PICKPOCKET/'59, then proceed at your own risk. OR: For a more satisfying modern look at a troubled clergyman, Nanni Moretti’s fine, thoughtful THE MASS IS ENDED/’85.

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