With ghostly eyes looking through the winter landscapes of the plains and villages of Ain, where the sanctified priest the Curé of Ars once lived, Jacques Demy tried to understand this fighter for communal spirituality and his daily torments of mysticism.
Cinematography
Winter landscapes shot like frozen prayers — Demy's eye for melancholy.
Direction
Student Demy already obsessed with lonely dreamers and impossible love.

Director
Jacques Demy
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Demy made this at IDHEC film school at age 22, four years before his feature debut — it's basically his thesis on longing.
The Curé of Ars was a real 19th-century figure, canonized for hearing confessions 12+ hours daily; Demy treats him like a romantic ghost in his own life.