Synopsis
Jean-Paul Belmondo delivers a subtly sensual performance in the hot-under-the-collar
Léon Morin, Priest, directed by
Jean-Pierre Melville. The French superstar plays a devoted man of the cloth who is desired by all the women of a small village in Nazi-occupied France. He finds himself most drawn to a sexually frustrated widow – played by
Emmanuelle Riva – a religious sceptic whose relationship with her confessor turns into a confrontation with both God and her own repressed desire. A triumph of mood, setting, and innuendo,
Léon Morin, Priest is an irreverent pleasure from one of French cinema’s towering virtuosos.
