Angels of Sin (1943)

Angels of Sin (original French title: Les anges du péché) was the first feature film directed by Robert Bresson. Made in 1943, nine years after his comedy short Affaires publiques, it was Bresson's only film released during the German occupation of France. Working titles included Bethany, and Bresson's favored title The Exchange, but producers felt these titles weren't sensational enough.

This film was made with a cast of professional actors, an aspect it shares with Bresson's next film, Les dames du Bois de Boulogne, which would be his last done that way. Though usually seen as being the most "conventional" of Bresson's features, the religious subject matter and the directness of the film's style is seen by many as auspicious of the director's later work.

Bresson collaborated on the film's screenplay with Raymond Leopold Bruckberger, a Dominican priest, and the noted dramatist Jean Giraudoux, who received top billing on the film's posters above the then-unknown Bresson.

Synopsis

Anne-Marie (Renée Faure), a well-off young woman, decides to become a nun, joining a convent that rehabilitates female prisoners. Through their program, she meets a woman named Thérèse (Jany Holt) who refuses any help because she says she was innocent of the crime she was convicted for. After being released from prison, Thérèse murders the man she feels is responsible for her imprisonment and comes to seek sanctuary from the law in the convent. Anne-Marie clashes with her sisters and elders over her zealousness to reform Thérèse, who manipulates and antagonizes her.

Actors