Spine 572: Léon Morin, Priest

Jean-Pierre Melville's Léon Morin, Priest (1961) is the story of a hot priest and a hot communist having banal religious conversations that rarely rise to a level that we can even pretend they are theological or philosophical. That these conversations also take place in a French town occupied by Nazis should raise the stakes, but the whole thing largely seems flat. It's a love story, and any depth beyond that didn't connect with us. But in retrospect maybe that is the point, maybe Melville is saying something particular about how even liberal-leaning organized religion is nice looking but empty. Anyway, at least we got to talk about Liberation Theology and communism for a bit.