Under the Sun of Satan

Applying his signature kinetic, pugnacious naturalism to a period literary adaptation, Maurice Pialat directs and co-stars in this piercing religious drama. UNDER THE SUN OF SATAN stars Pialat regular Gérard Depardieu as a deeply spiritual but anguished Catholic priest suffering a crisis of faith in a rural village in 1920s France, while Sandrine Bonnaire plays a sexually liberated peasant girl with some very dark secrets. Based on a 1926 novel by Georges Bernanos, a favorite of director Robert Bresson, this prickly rumination on sin and salvation stirred angry reactions when it won the Palme d’Or at Cannes.