Under Satan's Sun
Sous le soleil de Satan
Maurice Pialat
Menou-Segrais, senior parish priest in Campagne, a small village in the North, has taken in the priest Donissan. Consumed by his quest for the Absolute, but also by his own doubt, Donissan mortifies himself. Sixteen-year-old Mouchette, pregnant by her lover the marquis of Cadignan, kills the marquis when he refuses to leave Campagne with her.
With : Gérard Depardieu, Sandrine Bonnaire, Maurice Pialat, Alain Arthur, Yann Dedet, Brigitte Legendre, Jean-Claude Bourlat, Jean-Christophe Bouvet, Philippe Pallut, Marcel Anselin
Screenplay : Sylvie Danton, Maurice Pialat d'après le roman de Georges Bernanos
Image : Willy Kurant
Sound : Louis Gimel
Music : Henri Dutilleux
Editing : Yann Dedet
Screenplay : Sylvie Danton, Maurice Pialat d'après le roman de Georges Bernanos
Image : Willy Kurant
Sound : Louis Gimel
Music : Henri Dutilleux
Editing : Yann Dedet
Production : Erato Films, Films A2, Flash Films, Actions Films
Distribution: Gaumont
Distribution: Gaumont
It was under a barrage of now sadly famous boos and whistles that Maurice Pialat received the Golden Palm for his film at Cannes in 1986. Under Satan's Sun is Georges Bernanos' first novel, as well as Maurice Pialat's first adaptation of a literary work. "The script adaptation wasn't as difficult as you might think. We kept a lot of Bernanos in the dialogue, but overall we had to lighten the substantial gravity of the text. Our goal was to retain the power and eliminate the heaviness." (M. Pialat) "Can one film grace? Of all the adaptations of Bernanos, that of Pialat is the most daring, something of which Bernanos surely would not have disapproved." (J-M. de Montremy)