Congrès eucharistique diocésain (S)

Maurice Pialat's second film was the relatively straightforward documentary Congrès eucharistique diocésain, very different in tone and style from his bleak, jarring first film. The film consists entirely of documentary footage shot at a small-town religious festival, with occasional cutaways to observe the rolling hills and flowers of the surrounding country. Pialat's montage is loose and free-associative, mixing together snippets of various ceremonies and sacraments with these natural interludes as well as more off-the-cuff moments in which people stand around, chatting and laughing. These latter images are the most suggestive of later Pialat, already reflecting his interest in what happens outside the officially sanctioned moments, when ostensibly nothing is happening and people are just exchanging idle pleasantries and gossip. The editing too is striking, with the same choppy fast pace and free-associative rhythms that characterized Isabelle aux Dombes, though not used to the same disorienting effect. The repetitions and cuts here are gentler, just creating a unified portrait of events and little moments going on at various points during this ceremony.