Pastoral Symphony
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
This review is a part of the Palme d’Or Project: a review of every single Palme d’Or winner at Cannes Film Festival. This is a Grand Prix winner: what the Palme d’Or was originally called before 1955. Pastoral Symphony won for the 1946 festival and was tied with ten other films.
The film was selected by the following jury.
Jury President: Georges Huisman.
Jury: Iris Barry, Beaulieu, Antonin Brousil, J.H.J. De Jong, Don Tudor, Samuel Findlater, Sergei Gerasimov, Jan Korngold, Domingos Mascarenhas, Hugo Mauerhofer, Filippo Mennini, Moltke-Hansen, Fernand Rigot, Kjell Stromberg, Rodolfo Usigli, Youssef Wahby, Helge Wamberg.
Jean Delannoy's poetically sound opus Pastoral Symphony is maybe an allegorical tale that has shown signs of age as the decades have rolled by, but I feel comfortable stating that it is an underrated feature of the 40s. In ways, it is definitely obvious: a love triangle between a pastor and a blind woman, as well as the pastor's son that also takes a liking to her. Here's a romantic drama where hearts are torn, the woman of desire cannot judge the men based on how they look or present themselves visually, and faith comes into question. All of this seems very on-the-nose, and I can't really fault those that are turned off by Pastoral Symphony: it is literally made up of three now-cliches that have been used stately for decades (or so it seems: more on this later).
And yet I feel like a lot of the film is subdued artistically; where the heavy narrative notes lay, the film is quite touching visually and audibly. This is where the crux of Delannoy's message comes in: the emotional experience. In reality, Pastoral Symphony spotlights the misogyny and manipulation found within romance, and especially within the romantic drama. Lead character Gertrude is pulled every which way by the father and son fawning after her. The superficiality used to win her over is as clear as day for us, This will soon be the case for Gertrude as well, as Pastoral Symphony takes a cue from City Lights but uses a miraculous turn of events in a different way: the revelation of disdain.
You can read Pastoral Symphony in a few ways: either favourably or misguided.
This is why the film excels for me. It may be partially rooted in convention, yet it is the path least used that it takes that matters the most to me. However, there's also the understanding that Gertrud represents sinful desire, and I don't care as much for this angle: this is a little more of a metaphor indicative of the perversions of the men I'd like to think Pastoral Symphony is criticizing. To me personally, the film is looking at the obsession of the male gaze, and maybe the second possible interpretation is its own worst enemy in such a hypocritical (or accidentally meta) way. Again, I think Pastoral Symphony is a bit smarter than that, especially when Gertrud is framed as a positive being. Love is directionless, but obsession is a whole different fiasco. That to me I'd Pastoral Symphony: a look at fantasies going too far, and not the shifting of personal blame onto women out of convenience. I'll never know what Delannoy himself intended, but maybe that's for the best.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.