Bresson and Almodovar having a baby together: it would look like this film I venture.
I admit I came to watch this after having watched the director's first long feature, "Avril", where he further develops his themes and obsessions, again with the admirable vehicle of grace called Sophie Quinton. But let's first see what the film is about.
A young nun who changes the prices of honey jars she sells in a local market has the curious habit of buying condoms and having a big library of Yves Klein blue dildos. To reveal why this happens would be to spoil the charm and the grace of this little film. Sophie Quinton gives one the intimate conviction that her performance is of a hallucinating precision, something that transcends acting and becomes incarnation, a theme more fully developed in "Avril". It's like one of those Bresson heroines, but not gloomy at all, borrowing from Almodovar's sense of upside down, but without the kitch (except in one scene maybe, and mostly with the somewhat one-dimensional soundtrack, being the rather kitchy element).
Matters of faith, sexuality, love and following one's path without condemnation but with a wonderful, calm and gracious acceptance are the themes tenderly explored in and by the film with a touching sense of humor; just to give an example, at one instance mother superior asks our nun where she is going with her bike, presumably at an odd time, to which she responds "Out to pray, I love praying on bike," to which mother superior retorts "Don't pray too far!" All this is updated by Sophie Quinton's presence who has a quirky grace akin to Bjork's.
I also found charming the film's use of artistic vocabulary and the almost constant use of paintings and artifacts on screen, as something that showed the film's kinship with conceptual video art.
Gerald Hustache-Mathieu is definitely someone to watch. And one hopes his collaboration with his unique muse will go on for a long time.
