The first full-length feature of Robert Bresson, made in 1943 and preceded only by his 1934 comedy, Affaires publiques. His spare, concentrated style had not yet fully developed, but the seeds are there in this study of a Dominican nun's obsessive devotion to a female ex-convict who comes to live in her convent. The spiritual themes--confession, absolution, salvation--are explored through visual and dramatic paradoxes, as Bresson draws parallels between a life in prison and a life in God, and finds his final image of freedom in a pair of handcuffs. The script, by dramatist Jean Giraudoux, is talky and relatively conventional (it even makes some concessions toward some very un-Bressonian suspense), but the heaviness of the dialogue is balanced by Jany Holt's superbly understated performance as the prisoner--a performance that looks forward to the invisible acting style of Bresson's mature work.

Excerpt of Dave Kehr's review at the Chicago Reader located HERE

One of the most astonishing film debuts ever, made while France was still under Nazi occupation. Bresson chose an apparently timeless subject: the way that people affect each other's destinies. Based on the real convent of the Sisters of Béthany, a secluded order of nuns are minutely observed in their rehabilitation of women from prison. If the salvation is tangibly close to a Resistance adventure, it is the simple human confrontations that fascinate Bresson - the consuming desire of secure, bourgeois-born Anne-Marie to save the unrepentant Thérèse, wrongly imprisoned for the sake of her criminal lover. Concentrated dialogue (with a little help from Jean Giraudoux) and moulded monochrome photography by Philippe Agostini contribute to an outstanding film. Rarely have the seemingly opposite worlds of the spiritual and the erotic received such sublime, ennobling treatment.

Excerpt of TimeOut Film Guide located HERE