L'Argent (1983)

Recommended

France/Switzerland

Feature Film

Original Title: L'argent

Director: Robert Bresson

Writers: Robert Bresson, Leo Tolstoy

Cinematographers: Pasqualino De Santis, Emmanuel Machuel

Cast: Christian Patey, Vincent Risterucci, Caroline Lang, Sylvie Van den Elsen, Béatrice Tabourin, Didier Baussy, Marc Ernest Fourneau, Bruno Lapeyre

Bresson’s final film – based on a Tolstoy short story, depicting the social inequalities rife in society and the evils of the pursuit, coveting, and protection of money, in which a forged bank note passes from hand to hand, passing down through the class ranks, having an increasingly pronounced effect – is far from his best work, lacking the evocative imagery that has tended to dilute his more maddening affectations in the past, but is, never the less, a powerful one. Iain.Stott