MISERICORDIA Reviewed by GREG KING
Director: Alain Guiraudie
Stars: Felix Kysyl, Catherine Frot, Jean- Baptiste Durand, Jacques Develay, David Ayala, Sebastien Faglain.
Jeremie (Felix Kysyl, from Homefront, etc) briefly returns to his small hometown of Saint-Martial in rural France to attend the funeral of his former boss, the local baker, after an absence of ten years. He is invited to spend the night at the home of his widow, the kind-hearted and lonely Martine (Catherine Frot). She is glad of the company as the house otherwise seems empty.
But this upsets Martine’s son Victor (Jean-Baptiste Durand, from Two Of Us, etc), who suspects that the younger man is interested in a sexual relationship with her. However, Jeremie is drawn towards the slovenly, overweight isolated Walter (David Ayala), who lives on a remote farm outside the town and just happens to be one of Vincent’s closest friends from their childhood.
Anger and suspicion consume Victor, which leads to a confrontation with Jeremie in the middle of the forest. When Victor goes missing the police become involved. The local priest Abbe Phillipe Griseul (Jacques Develay, better known for his television work) feels sympathetic towards Jeremie and provides him with an alibi and protects him from the suspicions of the local gendarme (Sebastien Faglain). But it soon becomes clear that the priest has another aim. But the film hints that Jeremie felt a strong attraction towards his former boss. Secrets and lies, hidden desires and relationships from the past are soon bubbling to the surface.
Misericordia (which roughly translates as mercy) is an ambiguous, understated and moody psychological thriller written and directed by Alain Guiraudie (the 2013 sexually explicit queer thriller Stranger By The Lake, etc). With Misericordia he balances elements of the murder mystery and paranoid thriller genre with a touch of sexual tension and a strong homoerotic undercurrent. And, as with Stranger By The Lake, Guiraudie deftly mixes sex and violence into a potent scenario. He suffuses the material with a sinister undertone.
The film has been nicely shot by Claire Mathon (Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, Stranger By The Lake, etc) who uses light and shadows to great effect in heightening the mood. She also captures the autumnal colours of the forest. The woodland scenes are superbly brought to life by Mathon’s widescreen lensing. She gives us a strong sense of place.
Frot and Kysyl both appeared together in Homefront and this adds to the prickly tension between their characters. Kysyl brings a cryptic quality and an ambiguity to his performance as the outsider who ingratiates himself into the dead man’s family home. Frot brings a sympathetic and warm quality to her performance as Martine.
★★★
