Boldly taking on the first novel by Georges Bernanos, writer of the Bresson-adapted novels Mouchette and The Diary of a Country Priest, Pialat enters into a bit of terra incognita with dense, lyrical prose and a story steeped in the spiritual and supernatural. Though Pialat does rise to the occasion with striking, otherworldly light and swirling theological debates, his metaphysics remain rooted in a seamless, subtle realism so that the supernatural does not astonish: it uncannily surfaces within the ordinary. A startlingly vulnerable Depardieu earnestly fills the role of the priest Donissan, who is tormented by miraculous powers and their questionable source. When the story of Sandrine Bonnaire’s possessed, fiery Mouchette violently ruptures the narrative and Donissan’s anguished hold on his faith, Pialat’s masterful traversing of time and space enters into another dimension altogether. The filmmaker pulls his finely textured rug out from under the audience with uncanny sleight-of-hand and hypnotic force. Also playing Donissan’s superior with complex shades, the secular Pialat crafts a potent tale of the soul that crawls beneath the flesh and bone while firmly inhabiting it.