Unique among French films? A movie with no sex: Leon Morin, Priest

"Leon Morin, Priest" - a movie just about as interest as it sounds. Not. I expected so much more from this vintage (1961) Jean-Pierre Melville movie - which is briefly described as a story of a priest in Nazi occupied France during WWII. Melville did the truly great movie about the Occupation and French Resistance, Army of Shadows. But Leon Morin has none of that greatness - it's just slow and ponderous, something like an Eric Rohmer movie, lots of talk, but with even less action. The only truly interesting element is that Belmondo plays the very chaste and upright Morin: kind of like casting James Dean as a Mormon minister back in the day. Belmondo actually plays the part quite well, for what that's worth. It starts off promising: some women in occupied France send their children off to the countryside so that they won't be singled out as half-Jewish. One of the women, Barny (what a name!) goes to Morin for confession, and then begins a relationship of many years that she sees as perhaps flirtatious but Morin sees as purely spiritual - when at last she comes on to him, just a little, he storms off in outrage. They pass blithely through the Occupation - it's all happening offstage, there are no daring Resistance activities and no big conflict with the Nazi troops, and then it ends. By the end, Barny, a very sensual and probably bisexual young woman, realizes she can have a relationship with a man, Morin, that isn't based on sex and that doesn't become sexual (that in itself unusual if not unique in French cinema!), that Morin is interested in her as a person and as a soul to save. OK, possibly - but there's no drama as this works out - partly because Morin himself is such a stiff straight-arrow, never tempted even for a moment as far as we see. If he is tempted, it would be good of Melville to show us that - his own confession, his own torment - but within the borders of this film, Morin is saintly. Saints are boring.