Mouchette (Blu-ray)

Robert Bresson (Au hasard Balthazar) plumbs great reservoirs of feeling with Mouchette, one of the most searing portraits of human desperation ever put on film.

With a dying mother, an absent, alcoholic father, and a baby brother in need of care, the teenage Mouchette seeks solace and respite from her circumstances in the nature of the French countryside and daily routine.

Bresson deploys his trademark minimalist style to heartbreaking effect in this essential work of French filmmaking, a hugely empathetic drama that elevates its trapped protagonist into one of the cinema’s most memorable tragic figures.

• New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• Audio commentary from 2006 by film scholar, critic, and festival programmer Tony Rayns
• Au hasard Bresson, a 1967 documentary by Theodor Kotulla, featuring director Robert Bresson on the set of Mouchette
• Segment of a 1967 episode of the French television series Cinéma, featuring on-set interviews with Bresson and actors Nadine Nortier and Jean-Claude Guilbert
• Original theatrical trailer, cut by Jean-Luc Godard
• PLUS: An essay by critic and poet Robert Polito