While Serge's retarded sister Desirée delights in the natural surroundings, he finds himself bewildered by his attraction to Albine, the pretty niece of Jeanbernat, an old man who presides over a dilapidated estate called Paradou surrounded by a lush, overgrown garden. Jeanbernat is a rather bigoted atheist, and won't tolerate any talk of God. Albine is almost a wild animal herself - uneducated and passionate. She is attracted to Serge, and becomes his nurse when he suffers an emotional breakdown. Zola then adopts a different style of writing, more psychological and impressionistic, as if his settings come alive. Taken to Paradou after his breakdown, Serge forgets he is a priest and acts on his attraction to Albine, who encourages him to be her "husband."
Deeply symbolic, with obvious parallels to Adam and Eve in Eden, the second section of the novel is remarkably different from the first. These two contrasting parts of the novel reminded me of one of my favorite musical compositions, Debussy's "Sacred and Profane Dances," which begins with a stately severity but then dissolves into a hypnotic, sensuous waltz. But Debussy resolved the piece abruptly, whereas Zola carried it into third act. Serge suddenly remembers he is a priest and, overcome with shame and repentance, abandons Albine and Paradou to return to his priestly duties. Unable to comprehend Serge's rejection of her, Albine dies after she seals herself in her airtight room smothered in flowers. Serge performs a funeral rite for her, "Requiescat in pace," just as Desirée's cow is delivered of a calf.
Despite Zola's anticlerical convictions, he manages to make his priest, Serge, sympathetic by contrasting his faith, which is a gentle one centered on Mother Mary, with that of an altogether loathsome character, Brother Archangias, who chooses instead to worship at the feet of a gruesome crucified Jesus. Zola wrote in a style that became known as naturalism (though Zola didn't call it that), which is nothing but the presentation of things as they are and life as it is lived, not idealized or stylized in any way. No dramatic flummery. The style had its first impact on the theater around the turn of the century, and it was passed smoothly to film by some of France's first filmmakers, André Antoine and Louis Delluc. But Zola's unflinching descriptions of nature got him into some trouble with censorship. L'Abbe Mouret, for example, wasn't given an unexpurgated translation in the U.S. until the 1950s.(2)
But Book II, set in an intentionally ethereal landscape within the confines of a walled-in garden, is written in a very different style - impressionistic, almost surreal. It was this part of the novel that, I think, attracted Georges Franju to make a film of Zola's novel in 1970. Often described as "fantastic realism," Franju's filmmaking style was at its best in his depictions of Serge and Albine's dreamlike idyll inside Paradou.
Franju is a fascinating figure in French cinema. After military service in Algeria, he worked as a theatrical set designer. On meeting Henri Langlois, together they created a film club, made a short film called Le Métro, and in 1936 founded the Cinemathèque Française. La faute de l'Abbé Mouret was Franju's next-to-last film. One wonders why he chose to plunge himself (and us) in Zola's distant world. Though best remembered for the horror film Eyes Without a Face, his best film is Thérèse Desqueyroux, based on the Mauriac novel. He retired from filmmaking to take over as artistic director of the Cinémathèque Française upon the death of Langlois in 1977.
Zola's novel and Franju's film question what is natural and unnatural in a man's life (particularly a young man) and what is sane and insane behavior. There is a cruel irony in the depictions of Serge's fervent observance of priestly rituals and his passionate prayers to a statue of a beautiful Holy Virgin. He is disturbed by the natural lives of the people of Artaud, their purely physical, sexual lives, and by his natural attraction to Albine. They lead him to total physical and mental breakdown. In Paradou he experiences a life of the senses for the first time. He becomes a man, a sexual being. But only because he suffers amnesia - he has forgotten himself and the strict, inhuman rules imposed by his calling. He returns to his senses only to resume a life that denies the part of himself, perhaps the best part, that he discovered with Albine. He loses his innocence not at the hands of Albine but when his knowledge is restored, the guilt-stricken life of a priest.
In a related story, Pope Francis announced on April 11 that he committed "grave errors" in his handling of sexual abuse accusations made against a Chilean bishop. The Pope's appointment in 2015 of Bishop Juan Barros, the protegée of Rev. Fernando Karadima, found guilty by a Vatican judge of numerous acts of sexual abuse, has led to violent protests and, this past week, the firebombing of several churches in Chile. On an official visit to Latin America, the Pope stated that he refused to believe that Barros had any knowledge of the abuse without proof. On his return to Rome, however, the Pope apologized and begged the forgiveness of the victims. “From now on I ask forgiveness of all those I offended and I hope to be able to do it personally in the coming weeks,” Francis wrote.
This is only the latest scandal in the ongoing exposure of paedophile Catholic priests. The problem of sexual abuse carried out by ordained priests boils down to the Church's ancient insistence on celibacy - on the sexual denial of men and women under Holy Orders. The priests' enforced celibacy, their deliberate isolation from all sexual practices, has clearly led to serious sexual abuse committed by many priests. I wonder if Zola would've been surprised that, 143 years after La faute de l'Abbé Mouret's publication, the problem of the celibacy of Catholic priests would remain unresolved.
The film's weakest point is the casting of the lead roles, Serge and Albine. Francis Huster, who was 22 when the film was made, has the look and the fervor of Serge, but he is far too insubstantial to carry the film. Gillian Hills will be remembered - forever I hope - as "The Brunette" in Antonioni's Blow-Up. (Her hills were on display in virtually every film she appeared in.) She is pretty but utterly unalluring as the elemental wood nymph Albine. In the novel, she is practically a natural force and is completely pagan. In the film, her great sex scene with Francis Huster (in which they - ostensibly - both lose their virginity) has zero fire and cannot even rise to the level of softcore porn. There is another sex scene at the beginning of the film between Rosalie and Fortuné that is more successfully erotic, but only because the actress playing Rosalie (Silvie Feit) is clearly unabashed at being naked.
The character of Desirée was eliminated by Franju, but Franju's most significant alteration of Zola's novel was his ending. In the film, after the chaotic scene in which Albine's coffin is lowered into the grave, and Jeanbernat suddenly appearing to slice off Brother Archangias's ear, Serge returns alone to the church and, gazing rapturously at the statue of the Holy Virgin, he holds out his arms as the statue is transformed into a radiant image of Albine, whom Serge kisses tenderly. It is a striking and gloriously disturbing final image, accompanied beautifully by Jean Wiener's music. It is Albine's beatification, but for the exclusive use of Serge. I could almost hear Alex, the hero of Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, saying "I was cured all right."(3)
(1) The title has been variously (mis)translated as L'Abbe Mouret's Transgression and The Sin of Father Mouret ("sin" in French is "péché."). A more accurate title might be Father's Mouret's Mistake.
(2) And the distribution of the film in the U.S. was held up until 1977.
(3) Gillian Hills also appeared in Kubrick's film of A Clockwork Orange. She was one of the girls Alex took home for an impromptu orgy to the accompaniment of an electronic William Tell Overture.
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