At a press conference accompanying the release of French filmmaker Robert Bresson's final film 1983's "L'Argent," Bresson is asked how he could make a film so devoid of hope and full of despair. After struggling with the translation and faulty microphones on the stage, Bresson carefully replies, "you cannot have hope without despair."
It seems so simple and reductive to push a film that seems to have an agenda. However, viewing "L'Argent" today when everyone seems to be continuously talking/thinking about money just like 40 years ago, the grand lesson is that "L'Argent" speaks to the truth more than anything else.
Bresson's update of the posthumous Leo Tolstoi novella "The Forged Coupon" starts out so innocuously. A young man asks his father for money. He asks for more but comes up short. Without the benefit of a score, Bresson is forcing you to pay attention to every single detail, especially in the rapid entanglements of the first act. There are definite connections, but Bresson uses no stylish film tricks to show them. "L'Argent" is a game of prestidigitation. We see hands dipping into registers. We see bills held up to be examined. We see items thrust quickly into pockets. In other words, one counterfeit bill causes a world of trouble.
The morality of this lesson from Bresson is that there are consequences to each and every action. As his plot thickens (we will not spoil,) you rarely have those moments of disbelief. Even with the clever photography, "L'Argent" is real. Bresson portrays nearly everyone functioning in a world of glass. Many occasions offer you the chance to see a character putting on their facade before entering an establishment. This is a world where one counterfeit bill, seems to put everyone on guard. The tension results from covering the emotion and struggle with a veneer of mistrust. There is a hesitation for characters to even interact at times. Bresson beautifully takes advantage of these character flaws by regularly placing them in doorways framing the character on screen as addressing a character off screen like they are about to live in separate worlds.
The most chilling aspect of "L'Argent" is how Bresson sets this struggle in a (mostly) upper-class world. We regularly see the fruits of someone's labor (mopeds, suits, cameras) and as it deepens finally begin paying attention to their hurried pace from place to place or ability to shield themselves from the other world which behind closed doors they regard as crime-ridden. Finally, there is time. Bresson likes to play around with several different microsequences. Since there is no music, the editing and especially certain repeated motifs (again, no spoilers) make it feel lyrical. However, at any mention of time - the grim reality weighs heavily on us as viewers. This is a grim, unsympathetic portrait of one incident and its dismissal leading to a veritable maze of doubt. Weirdly, we know the truth all along - but have no idea how it will be represented on screen. "L'Argent" tells its tale without politics or even the leanings of a parable. In search of reason, Bresson communicates truth.
