Alain Guiraudie’s marvelously unsentimental French thriller begins in a temper of demise, one it by no means fairly shakes as occasions decide up in a twisty approach. A baker has died. He lived within the distant commune of Saint-Martial, making loaves for what look like a small variety of neighbors. Jérémie (Félix Kysyl), at one time a teenage apprentice to this man however now a drifting, wan-faced grownup with a lank crop of hair, has returned to face by his corpse and grieve.
Or perhaps he’s not grieving a lot as pondering, again within the city of his boyhood the place the baker’s widow, Martine (Catherine Frot), stirred by Jérémie’s presence, insists he keep some time within the empty bed room of his ex-chum Vincent (Jean-Baptiste Durand), now grown up and moved out along with his family. There’s a backstory right here, salty and suggestive, however Guiraudie sprinkles it on as sparingly as he can, ready for his plot to rise to fullness. Jérémie might have cherished his mentor, his spouse, too, perhaps greater than that. And Vincent isn’t loopy about his homecoming.
“Misericordia,” each as a title and a movie, would counsel a plunge into mourning or, to go by the Latin translation, one thing near compassionate mercy. Delightfully, Guiraudie has little interest in making that film. He launches Jérémie down the road like an inscrutable chaos agent in rumpled denim, tensely wrestling within the woods with Vincent and flirting with Walter (David Ayala), a slovenly layabout who doesn’t thoughts ingesting with firm. Each scene brings one other layer to Kysyl’s efficiency, by turns curious, lonely and aggressive.
Jérémie is inserting himself the place he doesn’t belong — you are feeling it earlier than you see it. Guiraudie, finest identified for his 2013 erotic thriller “Stranger by the Lake,” has by no means chiseled his photographs with such Chabrolian tautness as he does right here. A filmmaker with a queer focus, he writes characters which are particularly liberated from morality, making them dimensional but additionally harmful. “Misericordia” performs out in a stream of nighttime surprises (these are bakers with ungodly hours), together with the repeated sight of Vincent hovering over the houseguest sleeping in his outdated mattress.
Félix Kysyl, left, and Jacques Develay in “Misericordia,” a thriller that accommodates the vagaries of human habits and leaves punishment apart as a secondary concern.
(Sideshow and Janus Movies)
None of this will get churning cellos or the jump-scare therapy of most American thrillers (Marc Verdaguer’s rating walks a tightrope of synthy suggestiveness). Even when there’s a homicide — it’s an actual ouch — Guiraudie continues along with his insistent, deliberate circulation, a classy contact that may both endear you to the movie’s subversion or make you yearn for one thing extra melodramatic.
Strive to withstand that impulse. You’ll miss the pair of awkward native cops (Sébastien Faglain and Salomé Lopes) who, in a welcome stretch of darkish comedy, strategy the case in such an unhurried, nonjudgmental method, it feels extra like a interest for them. They, too, preserve some unusual midnight hours, as does a berobed native priest, Father Philippe (Jacques Develay), whose demeanor hides a daring streak and a penchant for displaying up in the best place on the flawed time.
This isn’t the type of puzzle thriller by which all the weather click on into place with a thudding literalism that compliments an attentive eye. It’s one which accommodates the vagaries of human habits, leaving punishment apart as a secondary concern. And just like the neighborhood’s morel mushrooms that appear to develop effectively over shallow, unexpectedly dug graves, there’s a way of mulchy inevitability about it. You may go residence once more, “Misericordia” suggests, perhaps with extra of an agenda the second time. Packing guilt is optionally available.
‘Misericordia’
Not rated
In French with English subtitles
Operating time: 1 hour, 44 minutes
Taking part in: Opens Friday, March 21 at Landmark’s Nuart Theatre, West Los Angeles
