Since his first feature film, 1943's Angels of the Streets, writer-director Robert Bresson specialized in making challenging, somber meditations on spiritual crises. Influenced by the work of Carl Theodor Dreyer (most obviously, The Passion of Joan of Arc), Bresson utilized amateur actors and a sparse visual approach. One of his most controversial, complex deliberations on life was 1967's Mouchette. Based on Georges Bernanos' novel, the film's grim portrayal of a displaced young girl prompted criticism as too bleak, especially compared to the French New Wave films of the era. Like Bresson's other masterpieces, A Man Escaped and Pickpocket, Mouchette is serious, aesthetic cinema at its most interesting and human. Bresson had worked from a Bernanos novel before, with his international breakthrough Diary of a Country Priest.