A repeat viewing of Robert Bresson’s Dostoievskian tale of inflated anomie coming acropper in post-war Paris. The object relations school would approve of the means of his salvation – a comination of hitting rock bottom and finding someone to love.
I like tales of ego-shrunk salvation: DISGRACE and FALCONER spring to mind.

Despite his reputation, there isn’t an especially Christian flavour to what happens to Michel, although there are allusions lurking in the background. There’s something very Madonna-like in the young girl whose openness of heart comes to mean so much to Michel; we, in turn, come to see him as a prodigal returned by the end of the film.