Les Dames Du Bois De Boulogne

Robert Bresson - 1945
All the Bresson marks are present and correct here. in usually slightly less extreme or developed form; use of sound, blankness of the acting (one can almost hear Bresson shouting at the professionals to tone it down), that rather enigmatic dialogue.
Dialogue is interesting here (written by Cocteau). It is a terrific and powerful story, touching on fate, choice, predestination, love, the earthly against the spiritual (or rather, 'pure'). Perhaps their is a slight tendency to manoevre people into rooms to repeat this dialogue, rather than Bresson's usual purely filmic means. The scenes are pretty long here, especially for Bresson. Also note we have a couple of examples of what even may, just may, be establishing shots (in a Bresson film!). The look is more stylised also, brought out by the Bressonian factor, which makes one notice things double. Their is that slight noirish tone (or maybe more Clouzot, or 'Le Jour Se Leve', kind of a grittier poetic realism) to the rain and the trenchcoats.
A note, also, on Bressonian framings. Here, at least, we have often a plan-Americain as a standing default; but the key is the height. Bresson seems to operate from a touch, just a touch, higher than eye level. Forehead, or top of head height). Both when photographing those standing, and those sitting down. He looks down slightly. This may help the overall impression of marionettes.
Yet this is Bresson, for a number of reasons. One of his intentions that Bresson achieved was to make a cinema of the present; one doesn't know what will happen next, what happens happens in the present, the pure physicality (much of which is derived from this present-tenseness) of the scene. This is partly due to narrative elipsis, 'acting' style, and the classic Bressonian complete destruction/ deconstruction of the idea of 'character psychology'. His figures are unknowable. I think there is more than this in his cinema of the present; I will try and pay it closer attention, as it is perhaps a key to what makes Bresson so distinctive in his art.
This sense of fate, which also may contribute (it's not really character's volitions that drive it) is enhanced by the moves of focus, largely a single move though there is a bit of back and forth, from Helene to Agnes. We have an omnipresent P.O.V., in classical terms, except of course we don't know what anyone is 'up to' (or if we do, it's not clear how they 'feel' about it), because Bresson-cinema does not work on those grounds.
There is a ten-minute lag where it all gets a bit lost about two-thirds through, but the final scenes are stunning; the return of Helene from our view of the car, the wonderful grace, yet desperation, of the final scene. This is really pretty excellent.