This is only the second film I have seen from director Alain Guiraudie (the other was “Stranger by the Lake”) and one thing that is readily apparent is that the man knows how to put together a movie. He is a superb director with his handling of character, tone, atmosphere and pacing all very much sublime. Before seeing “Misericordia” I began to play the film's trailer that was included on the MIFF website and it only took me a couple of seconds to know that it looked amazing and that I wanted to see it, so I immediately stopped the trailer from there so I could go in as cold as possible.
So much of “Misericordia” has to do with the history of its characters well before we know them, with a large chunk of this history never explained to us. It is obvious that Jérémie grew up in this small country town and was friends with Vincent and his mother Martine. However you sense that something happened between them all before Jérémie left for the city because the tension between them all when they reconnect after Jean-Pierre's funeral is simmering below their (what appear to be) simple interactions. Then there is Vincent's friend Walter, who Jérémie knew growing up but didn't really hang out with, and just how close was Jérémie to Jean-Pierre when he worked for him at his bakery? All this history is never really explained, but you feel uneasy because of it right from the start and while they appreciate Jérémie returning for Jean-Pierre's funeral, he is not really wanted there and they hope for him to soon leave. The interactions between Vincent and Jérémie are interesting because at times it feels like they want to reconnect by having fun wrestling and the like, but this wrestling also feels dangerous like it could turn serious at any moment. Despite his tiny frame, against Vincent's hulking figure, we work out just how manipulative Jérémie actually is, and how antagonistic he can be as he essentially stays on after the funeral because he knows it upsets Vincent, nothing more. His torturing of his friend continues when he strikes up a friendship with Walter, and when Martine, Vincent's mother, gives Jérémie Vincent's childhood bedroom to sleep in as he casually manipulates the people around him to extend his stay. All of this just drives Vincent insane (as he also believes that Jérémie wants to sleep with his mother), who you feel is a ticking time bomb, and Jérémie is doing whatever he can to set it off. Why though, he himself does not even know.
For those who want to go into “Misericordia” as spoiler-free as possible, stop reading this review now, because I am going to be talking about some of the film's surprises.
Eventually, everything comes to a head when Vincent collects Jérémie in his car, drives out into the forest to have a punch on with him before making him leave for the city, never to return. However it is Vincent who is never to return when Jérémie violently and quickly kills him by bashing his head in with a giant and sharp rock. It is such a violent moment, but happens so quickly, making it all the more brutal. From here on out “Misericordia” becomes like a rural version of “The Talented Mr. Ripley” as he buries the body and goes about worming his way further into Vincent's family and friends lives, all while acting shocked when they report Vincent missing after his car is found abandoned at a train station. I absolutely loved everything about this film during these scenes, as Jérémie finds himself caught deeper and deeper in a web of lies he has created himself, and can find no way of getting out of.
Felix Kysyl plays Jérémie, and he is an actor I was not familiar with, but who I thought was excellent in the role. He has a very young, boyish, almost angelic-type face, which is an interesting juxtaposition to the dark things he does in this film. I thought Kysyl was particularly good in the scenes where the walls are closing in on him, the police are getting closer, and the guilt is becoming far too much for him to handle. You can see the fear on his face that he is going to be caught out, and yet you can also see his brain working overtime trying to come up with his next move or an explanation to a question the police may have. The other actor who I thought was very impressive in “Misericordia” was David Ayala who plays Walter. He is a big man, buy Ayala gives him a shyness and an awkwardness to him. It is a quiet, sensitive performance, as Walter really wants to find a friend in Jérémie, even as things are not quite adding up around him. I was less impressed with Catherine Frot's role as Martine, not because she is bad, but most of her interactions feel the same in every scene she is in, and I feel she is a little underused.
Besides Alain Guiraudie exemplary direction, the highlight of “Misericordia” for me was definitely Claire Mathon's cinematography which is to die for. I am a big fan of Mathon's work with director Celine Sciamma, and this is the third time Mathon and Guiraudie have worked together. The way she uses light is so different from her contemporaries and I think that is due to the fact that she likes to use as much natural light as possible, but the light always looks so soft in the films she photographs. The scenes set in the local forest are just stunning with the autumnal colours of reds, browns, yellows and oranges giving her images a painterly look. It is actually very similar to “Petite Maman”, the most recent film she made with Sciamma.
Now on to the negatives of “Misericordia”, and I did have a few misgivings about the film. The first was the way characters always seemed to keep bumping into each other in the strangest places, no matter the time of day or night. It took away from the reality of the situation, as everything seemed to rely on coincidence or happenstance. I know that the priest character states that he was doing everything in his power to meet up with Jérémie, but some of the times they “casually” meet in the thick of night is ridiculous. Speaking of the priest, his character was one that also annoyed the hell out of me. That said, he is also part of what I consider the best scene (or at least the best written scene) of “Misericordia” which takes place in the confession booth, although with Jérémie and the priest swapping their usual places. So much is told, explained and laid out in this scene, but it is done in a natural and believable manner. The priest is also in the funniest moment in the film which I will talk about soon.
As I mentioned, I thought “Misericordia” was a brilliant little rural thriller, clicking on all cylinders, when about two thirds of the way in, director Alain Guiraudie makes the strange choice to abruptly change the tone of his film towards comedy and the absurd, and sadly from this point onward, the film totally lost me. It was still impeccably made, but the sillier it got, the less interested I became in it. All the tension that had been building is lost due to this sudden change in tone, which then heads towards a seriously underwhelming and sudden ending. I must admit that I was a little disheartened that this film that I was loving so much, ended up becoming so bland (from a story point of view) by the end. Almost none of the comedy elements worked for me, but rather they destroyed a perfectly good and tense thriller. However there was one scene involving Jérémie, the priest, two cops, and the priest's erect penis that was absolutely hilarious. It is a quick visual gag, but so so funny.
Overall, I thought that Alain Guiraudie's latest film “Misericordia” was both a superbly directed and shot film that I was loving for two thirds of its running time, before it made a turn towards comedy and the absurd and a very underwhelming finale. Up until then though, I thought it was a fantastic thriller, filled with homo-eroticism, that I likened to a rural version of “The Talented Mr. Ripley”. While it didn't end up as the classic I originally thought it was destined to be, “Misericordia” has been so well made that, despite the fact I disliked the final forty minutes of it, I would still give it a recommendation as something worth seeing.
3 Stars.
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