Import

God Needs Men (Paul Graetz] goes back a hundred years to tell an absorbing story of the hardy islanders of Sein, off France's Brittany coast, who used to pray for shipwrecks to augment their bare subsistence from the sea. Sometimes they helped their prayers along by luring ships on to the rocks. But when the tiny island's single priest gave up his flock as incorrigible sinners and returned to the mainland, it was unthinkable for the Godfearing islanders to give up their religion. In a curious mixture of devotion and sacrilege, they drafted one of their own to carry on as the priest.

Out of a novel based on this provocative fragment of history, French moviemakers have put together a masterly picture. Subtly but forcefully, with compassion, humor and a spirituality that never grows sanctimonious, it explores the struggle within the layman-priest (Pierre Fresnay) and the clash between the impulsive religious ardor of the islanders and the authority of a church jealous of its sacred functions.

Sexton Fresnay, ragged, unschooled and in awe of the pulpit, agrees against his will to take up a few of the priestly duties. But he is pushed deeper & deeper into the role by the demands of his flock. He rejects the girl (Andree Clement) who wants to marry him, moves into the rectory, reluctantly listens to confessions, fearfully goes through the motions of giving absolution.

Fresnay's anguished conscience struggles against his growing sense of mission and pride of accomplishment. The islanders persuade him to complete the imposture by celebrating a Mass. Before he can go through with it, a priest (Jean Brochard) arrives from the mainland, touches off a conflict that brings the movie to an end in a final surge of dramatic power.

Handsomely photographed in its stark setting of rock and sea, the picture is studded with memorable scenes. One sequence showing a woman in childbirth on a heaving sailboat makes Roberto Rossellini's handling of a similar scene in The

Miracle look artless and crude. Director Jean (Symphonic Pastorale) Delannoy can also take credit for the rare cinematic feat of evoking deep religious feeling without sugar & molasses. His constant perception of the story's human values, and Actor Fresnay's superbly sensitive playing make God Needs Men the best foreign-language film to reach the U.S. in at least a year.

Fearing that its treatment of ticklish religious questions might offend Roman Catholics, officials at last fall's Venice Film Festival refused at first to show the picture. But though God Needs Men ventures into the same delicate area as Director Rossellini's controversial Miracle (TIME, Feb. 26), Catholics apparently found nothing to object to in Director Delannoy's handling of the theme. After the Venice officials reconsidered their ban, God Needs Men took a grand prize at the festival, later won a special award from the International Catholic Film Office.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.