"Director: Robert Bresson"

• Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) | Blu Ray | (29/04/2019) from £21.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Bresson achieves the pinnacle of his art in the tale of a gentle creature's journey through a cruel world. A profound masterpiece from one of the most revered filmmakers in the history of cinema, Au hasard Balthazar, directed by Robert Bresson (Pickpocket), follows the donkey Balthazar as he is passed from owner to owner, some kind and some cruel but all with motivations outside of his understanding. Balthazar, whose life parallels that of his first keeper, Marie, is truly a beast of burden, suffering the sins of humankind. But despite his powerlessness, he accepts his fate nobly. Through Bresson's unconventional approach to composition, sound, and narrative, this simple story becomes a moving parable about purity and transcendence. Special Edition Features: New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack Interview from 2005 with film scholar Donald Richie Un metteur en ordre: Robert Bresson, a 1966 French television programme about the film, featuring Bresson, filmmakers JeanLuc Godard and Louis Malle, and members of Balthazar's cast and crew Original theatrical trailer Plus: An essay by film scholar James Quandt

• Les Dames Du Bois De Bologne | Blu Ray | (16/03/2020) from £11.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Two married couples adjust to the vast social and economic changes taking place in China from the 1980s to the present.

• A Man Escaped | Blu Ray | (03/09/2018) from £10.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Based on the memoirs of André Devigny, a member of the French Resistance held in Montluc prison by the occupying Germans during World War II.

• L'Argent | Blu Ray | (08/08/2022) from £15.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  A forged banknote leads to a tragic chain of events that culminates in murder, in Robert Bresson's superb swansong. Based on a short story by Tolstoy, L'Argent is Bresson's uncompromising last word on sin, chance and salvation, themes that he explored with such power and force throughout his 40-year career. Shot in the director's imitable austere style, the film won the Best Director prize at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival and is widely regarded as one of his great masterpieces.

• Au Hasard Balthazar | Blu Ray | (31/12/2019) from £26.98   |  Saving you £-6.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Revered director Robert Bresson's celebrated masterpiece is the seemingly simple yet profoundly moving and deeply affecting tale of Balthazar, a donkey in rural France. Passed from owner to owner, in turn treated kindly and cruelly, always inhabiting a world beyond his control, Balthazar exists as a beast of burden, suffering for the sins of man. But through his silence and powerlessness - as well as Bresson's masterly touch - his trajectory becomes a stirring, transcendental allegory of purity and hope. A film unlike any other, Au Hasard Balthazar was awarded the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival and has rightly taken its place in the pantheon of greatest French films ever made.

• The Trial of Joan of Arc | Blu Ray | (08/08/2022) from £15.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The legendary story of Joan of Arc's trial and conviction is powerfully retold in Robert Bresson's minimalist masterpiece. Working from the official transcript of the 15th century trial, Bresson shoots Joan's ordeal with a serene simplicity that reveals her vulnerability and her resilient faith. A transcendent and moving evocation of human suffering and spiritual liberation, The Trial of Joan of Arc remains a powerful exploration of religious virtue with one of cinema's most haunting and poignant finales.

• Diary Of A Country Priest | DVD | (30/09/2007) from £9.49   |  Saving you £8.50 (89.57%)   |  RRP £17.99

  A new priest (Claude Laydu) arrives in the French country village of Ambricourt to attend to his first parish. The apathetic and hostile rural congregation rejects him immediately. Through his diary entries the suffering young man relays a crisis of faith that threatens to drive him away from the village and from God. With his fourth film Robert Bresson began to implement this stylistic philosophy as a filmmaker stripping away all inessential elements from his compositions the dialogue and the music exacting a purity of image and sound.

• Mouchette (1967) (Criterion Collection) UK Only | Blu Ray | (14/12/2020) from £17.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  ROBERT BRESSON (Au hasard Balthazar) plumbs great reservoirs of feeling with Mouchette, one of the most searing portraits of human desperation ever put on film. With a dying mother, an absent, alcoholic father, and a baby brother in need of care, the teenage Mouchette seeks solace and respite from her circumstances in the nature of the French countryside and daily routine. Bresson deploys his trademark minimalist style to heartbreaking effect in this essential work of French filmmaking, a hugely empathetic drama that elevates its trapped protagonist into one of the cinema's most memorable tragic figures. Special Features: New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack Audio commentary from 2006 by film scholar, critic, and festival programmer Tony Rayns Au hasard Bresson, a 1967 documentary by Theodor Kotulla, featuring director Robert Bresson on the set of Mouchette Segment of a 1967 episode of the French television series Cinéma, featuring on-set interviews with Bresson and actors Nadine Nortier and Jean-Claude Guilbert Original theatrical trailer, cut by Jean-Luc Godard PLUS: An essay by critic and poet Robert Polito

• A Man Escaped | DVD | (03/09/2018) from £6.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Based on the memoirs of André Devigny, a member of the French Resistance held in Montluc prison by the occupying Germans during World War II.

• The Devil, Probably | DVD | (28/04/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Regarded by many as a masterpiece The Devil Probably tells the story of a young man living in Paris who desires more from life than the glib superficial truths and material things that are on offer to him. He reaches out to his friends and psychiatrist to provide him with the great answers in life. But his spiritual deliverance remains beyond his grasp until he reaches a bizarre arrangement with a fellow drifter. Shot in his signature spare style Bresson's penultimate work is as visionary hyptonic and enduring as any of the films in his truly remarkable career.

• The Trial Of Joan Of Arc | DVD | (23/05/2005) from £7.99   |  Saving you £14.00 (233.72%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Characteristically breaking with tradition director Robert Bresson presents a realistic unique view of the life and death of Joan of Arc. Using a script based on the actual transcript notes taken during her trial Bresson focuses on the psychological and physical torture that Joan had to endure showing how these techniques were used to break her resolve and cause her to eventually recant her faith. With impeccable historical accuracy Bresson re-creates the story of the peasant gi

• Au Hasard Balthazar | DVD | (26/08/2013) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-4.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Revered director Robert Bresson's celebrated masterpiece is the seemingly simple yet profoundly moving and deeply affecting tale of Balthazar, a donkey in rural France. Passed from owner to owner, Balthazar exists as a beast of burden, suffering for the sins of man. But through his silence and powerlessness his trajectory becomes a stirring, transcendental allegory of purity and hope. Voted 16th in Sight and Sound's recent Greatest Films of All Time poll, Balthazar has rightly taken its place in the pantheon of true French classics.

• Pickpocket | DVD | (25/04/2005) from £20.00   |  Saving you £3.99 (19.95%)   |  RRP £23.99

  Inspired by Dostoevsky's 'Crime and Punishment' Robert Bresson's 'Pickpocket' tells the story of Michel (Martin Lasalle) a solitary young man who embarks upon a life of petty theft. Plying his trade on the city streets racetracks and Metro system of Paris Michel hones his sleight-of-hand skills to perfection and becomes consumed by his escalating addiction. But his activities alienate him from his few friends while attracting the attention of a police inspector and a professi

• L'Argent | DVD | (23/05/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  'A small transgression provokes a vertiginous avalanche of Evil - until the moment the forces of Good arrive' - Robert Bresson Bresson's classic film adapted from a story by Tolstoy tells of the tragic train of events which ensue when two schoolboys pass a forged banknote in a photography shop. The note is passed to the unwitting Yvon a delivery driver who is arrested for possessing it. Despite being let off by the court Yvon loses his job and becomes trapped in a disastrous sp

• A Man Escaped | DVD | (28/04/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  This compelling thrilling tale of courage and faith recounts a Resistance fighter's daring escape from a Nazi prison just hours before he was to be executed. Based on a true story the film meticulously details Lieutenant Fontaine's preparations for escape. With stealth and precision he puts into action a plan as suspenseful as anything out of Hitchcock. At the height of his powers using non-professional actors and a rigorously spare style acclaimed director Robert Bresson (Pickpocket Lancelot Of The Lake) created a radiantly intense classic that became an inspiration for the New Wave.

• Les Dames Du Bois De Boulogne | DVD | (30/08/2004) from £15.99   |  Saving you £4.00 (25.02%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Beneath the veneer of glamour occupied Parisian high-society has become a rotten core of corruption and hate capable of producing Helene - a young woman intent on bringing about the pain and humiliation of her ex-lover.

• Mouchette | Blu Ray | (10/03/2014) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Perhaps the most accessible of Robert Bresson's films, this story of a 14-year-old schoolgirl at the mercy of the world around her is like a melodrama stripped of flourish. Mouchette is an angry adolescent in the French provinces, the daughter of a drunken bootlegger and a dying, bedridden mother, a pariah in school and a figure of village gossip. She rebels in typically adolescent ways, lobbing mud at teasing classmates and defying wagging tongues with a wilful stare, but her deep pain and loneliness pour from her hollow, sad eyes. There's no sentimentality in Bresson's portrait of village life but for a few brief moments the film explodes with energy and emotion. Mouchette rides the bumper cars at a local fair, flirting with a young boy in loving bumps and deliberate rams, and her dour expression flowers in a smile as the fairground speakers blare a rock & roll tune... until her father's heavy hand slaps her back to reality. It's a moment unlike any other in a Bresson film, a joyous reprieve from the monotony of her life, but if the rest of her existence is glum and hopeless, the film is unexpectedly beautiful. The style is often fragmented--the film opens on a stunning play of hands, feet and spying eyes as poacher and police both wait for their prey--but the beauty of the forests and meadows creates an idyllic naturalism that leavens Bresson's harsh portrait of the human condition. --Sean Axmaker

• Lancelot du Lac | DVD | (28/04/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Winner of the International Critics Prize at Cannes in 1974 Lancelot Du Lac Bresson's masterpiece has lost none of its power and continues to cast a mystical spell. In this compelling and hypnotic film about the Arthurian legend the Knights of the Round Table their numbers depleted by their bloody and fruitless quest for the Holy Grail return to King Arthur's court. Once there Lancelot's passionate relationship with Queen Guinevere causes the Knights to fall out amongst themselves eventually leading to their downfall.

• Mouchette | DVD | (26/08/2013) from £10.78   |  Saving you £5.21 (32.60%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Mouchette is one of Robert Bresson’s greatest cinematic achievements, plumbing immense emotional depths in a searing, heartbreaking portrait of human frailty. Hemmed in by a dying mother, an alcoholic father and a baby brother in need of care, the adolescent Mouchette searches for sanctuary in nature and domestic chores. As the delicate intricacies of her life are played out a touching, tender and tragic portrait is painted, making her of one of cinema’s most memorable tragic heroines. An essential piece of classic French filmmaking.

• Au Hasard Balthazar | DVD | (22/11/2004) from £32.37   |  Saving you £-12.38 (-61.90%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Taking man's inhumanity to man as its central theme 'Au Hasard Balthazar' traces the life of a donkey christened Balthazar by a group of young children from birth to death. Balthazar's story begins on a small farm in a rural district of France. Throughout his life he is owned by many of the locals returning to some of them more than once and is set various tasks from drawing a carriage to performing in a circus turning a grindstone to acting as a smuggler's means of transport.