Emma Wilson on the Robert Bresson film "Diary of a Country Priest"

Although it is a literary adaptation (of Georges Bernanos’s novel), Journal could not be further from the "Tradition of quality"". Bresson develops a highly individual style, typified by stark images, silences and absences, ideally suited to the recurrent concern with spirituality in his cinema from the 1940s on. In Journal, Bresson also explores the possibility of a diary form in cinema, changing both the form and content of French film.
Emma Wilson "French Cinema since 1950 Personal Histories" (1999)