Robert Bresson’s widely hailed masterpieces (Au Hasard Balthazar,  1966, Mouchette, 1967, etc.) channel their dramatic impact through the auteur’s subtle direction and quiet storytelling, two qualities not generally compatible with film noir. Les anges du péché (US: Angels of Sin), however, Bresson’s debut feature released during the German occupation of France, hints at these artistic trademarks to come (and his preoccupation with religion) but within a far more conventional film whose criminal element (a murderess hides out as a nun in a convent) is intensified by a sort of psycho-sexual undertone among women of God. Serving perhaps as an inspiration for Douglas Sirk’s 1951 Thunder on the Hill, the film stars Renée Faure as Anne-Marie Lamaury, a Dominican nun from a wealthy upbringing who funnels all of her hope and optimism (“she’s the happiest one here”) into her vocation of rehabilitating female convicts (the lamplit night scenes in which the sisters rendezvous with the new inmates are visually delicious), especially after meeting Thérèse (Jany Holt), a young, bitter prison inmate convinced she was framed for murder. When Thérèse is finally released, she exacts deadly revenge on the man who framed her and escapes the police by returning to the convent and commencing her novitiate to hide among the sisters, including Anne-Marie, whose fascination with Thérèse turns to obsession, then arrogance, then expulsion; Thérèse’s resistance ultimately sends Anne-Marie into a state of physical disease, Christian ecstasy, or maybe both. Grünenwald’s score alternates between lively and dreamy, dominated by soft strings, and Bresson directs with youthful aplomb, setting up shots and blocking scenes for maximum visual reward, such as the clothes washing scene in which ripples of water shimmer on the walls, the visit to a hysterical Thérèse in solitary confinement, or the silent announcement of the police’s arrival during last rites. Noir fans will especially appreciate Bresson’s early nod to forthcoming noir tropes, such as the lattice of shadows from the Venetian blinds in the community room.