argent

Robert Bresson’s final film, an adaptation of Tolstoy’s novella The Forged Coupon, is simultaneously bleak and luminous, and sharp enough to cut diamonds. The story of a counterfeit bill’s passage from hand to hand and the resulting tragic consequences is rendered with a clean force that would be startling from a filmmaker of any age; coming from one in his early eighties, it was, and still is, astonishing. L’argent burns white hot—not with anger but with a perfect clarity of purpose: to direct us to see that habitual human callousness is what keeps us out of paradise.

L’argent had its U.S. premiere at the 21st New York Film Festival in 1983, and returned to NYFF earlier this month as a Revivals selection in this beautiful 2K digital restoration, scanned in 4K from the original negative.

1983 | 83m | French and Latin with English subtitles | Color | DCP | A Janus Films release

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