French
FranceBelgium
In director Nicolas Boukhrief’s adaption of the 1952 best-selling Prix Goncourt novel by Beatrix Beck, young priest Leon Morin (Romain Duris), and atheist/communist Barny (Marina Vacth), wrangle about religion and redemption. Their encounters take place in the closing days of WW ll, in a small French town under Nazi occupation. Barny’s husband has been captured by the Nazis and interned in a P.O.W. camp, casting an additional under-current of sensuality to the duo’s discourses, the mutual musings of a beautiful young woman and her confessor. Their debates are contentious and thought-provoking, yet good-natured and at times amusing, until the darker sides of the Nazi occupation become evident.