On a picture of the feretory containing the remains of Jean-Marie Baptiste Vianney, an annotation recalls important moments in the life of the pastor of Ars as well as his sanctification. Pictures of the winter landscape surrounding Ars, the village streets, church and the parsonage, remind of the pastor’s life, humbleness and love.
As a counterpoint to the image, the commentary dwells on the demanding severity of the pastor’s sermons, and furthermore the parish’s reactions to them, evidence of a hostile attitude.
Finally, the film is a narration of how the pastor is tempted to escape, how he is ashamed of his cowardice and how he returns to the confessional that he shouldn’t ever leave again.
The picture of the feretory shown in the beginning is accompanied by testimonies given during the process of sanctification.

Jean Pierre Berthomé, Jacques Demy et les racines du rêve, L’Atalante, Nantes 1982

The film was inspired, so to speak, by the idea of suffering as a prayer. I felt that even the slightest camera movement would disrupt this litany. I wanted to convey the sense of delicacy that can be found within excruciating pain.

Jacques Demy, “Cahiers du Cinéma”, no. 155, May 1964

There exists, unfortunately, a strong prejudice against slowness. People who do not like Ordet, for instance, say that it is a slow film. The same people say the same thing about Le bel indifférent. They are of course wrong for two reasons. Firstly, Le bel indifférent is not really so very slow. It is rather like one of those sports cars that are forced by the great power of their engines to run in crescendo and without faltering to a point of extreme tension when they come to rest, like the speedomete of a Bolide when it hits the ceiling at 240mph. Secondly, a film is neither good nor bad because it is fast or slow. The quality of Two Pennyworth of Hope, for instance, does not come from its speed (apparent: it is a film in which nothing happens) but from the appropriateness of this speed. Nor does the quality of Ordet come from its slowness (apparent: it is a film in which thousands of things happen) but from the appropriateness of this slowness. And the chief quality of Jacques Demy’s film is above all its admirable, total appropriateness.

Jean-Luc Godard, Godard on Godard, Da Capo Press, New York 1986