In World War II, the widow Barny (Emmanuelle Riva) sees the Italian soldiers arriving in the occupied Saint Bernard while walking to her job. Barny lives with her daughter and works correcting tests and feels a great sexual attraction for her boss Sabine (Nicole Mirel). When the Germans arrive in the town, Barny sends her half-Jewish daughter to live in a farm in the countryside and finds that Sabine's brother has been arrested and sent to a concentration camp. The atheist Barny decides to baptize her daughter to protect her and chooses the priest Léon Morin (Jean-Paul Belmondo) to discuss with him themes related to religion and Catholicism and Léon lends books to her. Barny converts to the Catholicism and becomes closer to Léon, feeling an unrequited desire for him.

"Léon Morin, Prêtre" is a verbose and theatrical film with magnificent performances of Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Paul Belmondo and awesome cinematography. There is a great sexual tension between Barny and Sabine in the beginning and then between Barny and Léon Morin but the plot gives the sensation of going to nowhere, presenting a philosophical discussion about religion and Catholicism. The subtitles in the DVD released by the Brazilian distributor Lume Filmes do not have a perfect synchronization with the speech and sometimes it is tiresome and necessary to rewind the movie to finish reading the dialog. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Léon Morin, o Padre" ("Léon Morin, the Priest")

I should note that I don't know Jean-Pierre Melville's movies that well. I understand that he was the spiritual father of the French New Wave, and influenced both Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Jim Jarmusch.

Since Melville's "Léon Morin, prêtre" ("Léon Morin, Priest" in English) is the first movie of his that I've seen, I have to say that I'm impressed. It's set in a French town during WWII, first occupied by Mussolini's Italy, then by Hitler's Germany. Emmanuelle Riva - who later got a lot of recognition in Michael Haneke's "Amour" - plays a lapsed Catholic-turned-communist who goes to make a confession and ends up feeling attracted to the priest (Jean-Paul Belmondo). But facts of the Nazi occupation remain.

A major theme of the discussions between the woman and the priest is the meaning of Christianity. There's the issue of merely going to church versus performing benevolent acts. I guess that the movie could've gotten into the Catholic Church's history of antisemitism. Although it doesn't, the movie still raises important points, and also uses techniques like camera angle to tell the story. This movie, along with "The Nun's Story" and maybe "The Exorcist", would be a good set to watch for movies looking at the Catholic Church. Worth seeing.

This is a movie that is partly about Christianity, but it doesn't only speak to a Christian audience. First and foremost, this is a movie about characters facing difficult realities, and finding different sorts of solace in each other.

I must say, Leon Morin was a fantastic character. I'm sure its due to a combination of great acting and writing. It's the kind of priest that you can imagine having long talks with, and the kind of person you can both disagree with and show great respect. I'm sure this movie has opened up the eyes of many when it comes to what a catholic priest can be.

The backdrop of the story, the second world war in a French town, is interesting, and even though it's not really a war movie, the war is always present in one way or the other.

While watching the movie, there were times that I thought it was too slow, but after finishing it, those moments were all forgotten. The movie doesn't have a complex plot, or all that dramatic scenes. But there's so much going on between the characters, that it captures you on two levels. One is the conversations themselves, with arguments for and against God (etc.),but the other is decoding the feelings that the characters have for each other. It's easy to expect a cliché, but the movie handled the situation really well.