The Criterion Collection

The fact that there are no hoodlums or heists in Léon Morin, Priest doesn’t keep it from being one of the tensest, most gripping films from Jean-Pierre Melville, known mostly for his thrillers. As Dave Kehr points out in his New York Times review of the new Criterion edition, a lot of that tension has to do with Jean-Paul Belmondo in the title role: “Belmondo’s sexual magnetism is still very much part of this discreetly sensual film, which describes the evolving relationship between a young widow (Emmanuelle Riva) and a parish priest in a provincial town in Vichy France.” Kehr goes on to praise the “immaculate” Blu-ray edition and suggest that Melville’s film may be his most emotional, as it “comes closer than any other Melville film to suggesting that genuine intimacy can exist between two people.” In Film Comment, Kent Jones cites Léon Morin as one of “three of [Melville’s] greatest films” and gushes, “Absolutely every gesture counts in this impeccably constructed and behaviorally daring film.” And Home Theater Forum’s Matt Hough calls the film “a real surprise and delight from director Jean-Pierre Melville,” saving some praise for Belmondo as well: “He’s just as charismatic as he was in the more obviously sexual Breathless, quite a feat for an actor who is never out of his clothes here, and yet there is a striking sense of his depths of feeling and raw emotions that he’s barely containing beneath his utterly composed surface.”

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