Browse all reviews by letter     A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 0 - 9

aka - Quatre Nuits D'Un Reveur
France 1971
Directed by
Robert Bresson
87 minutes
Rated G

Reviewed by
Bernard Hemingway
2 stars

Four Nights Of A Dreamer

Bresson "does" Truffaut in this adaptation of the Dostoevsky novella, White Nights, which had already been filmed by Visconti in 1957 under that title. Guillaume Des Forêts is the Jean-Pierre Leaud-ish main character who meets the love-lorn damsel (Isabelle Weingarten) and accompanies her as she waits for the man who she loves and who has abandoned her a year previously.

Like Leaud, Des Forêts is slightly absurd with his solipsistic, melancholy romanticism and this does not help Bresson's film which is further lumbered with musical interpellations (much like the Bill Haley number in the Visconti version) which might have had appeal in their days but now are intrusive curios.

Bresson also opts to illustrate the two main character's backstory another decision that serves only to distract from the main agenda which is the the emotional unfolding that occurs between them. Here the director's rather mannered, elliptical style which is notoriously indifferent to the performative side overwhelms Dostoevsky's story. Instead of the dynamic developing between the two leads Bresson chooses to present the story more as Jacques' dream or fantasy of love, with the girl a kind of catalyst for that fantasy. This gives the film a observational, even sociological, quality which leaves it of marginal interest as a period piece, and for film students, as a kind of Nouvelle Vague memento mori but in itself it is emotionally uninvolving.

 

 

back

Want something different?

random vintage best worst