Miséricorde

In Alain Guiraudie’s seventh feature, Jérémie (Félix Kysil) returns to his hometown in the French-Occitan region of Aveyron for the funeral of his former boss, the village baker. He stays with the now-widowed Martine (Catherine Frot), reconnects with a surly man he used to admire from afar, worries that the mushrooms in the undergrowth might betray him and receives help from the inquisitive village abbot (Jacques Develay). If this story sounds familiar, it might be that you’ve read the filmmaker’s 1000-page second novel Rabalaïre, which featured similar, albeit not identical characters and plots. In fact, MISÉRICORDE might be the first time that Guiraudie’s literary and cinematic work intertwine with such clarity and casualness. The more sprawling his novels get, the more precise and tight his filmmaking becomes, with less dialogue and an inherently descriptive quality. Increased weight is given to fuller, unspoken shots and extreme close-ups, while great pleasure is taken in showing the shades of autumn in mysterious forests. As the protagonist enters a family cocoon that is not his own, the filmmaker mixes his village memories with libidinous fantasies in his own highly amusing, unsettling and moving way. (Antoine Thirion)

In the presence of Alain Guiraudie.

Alain Guiraudie: LES HÉROS SONT IMMORTELS (1990, K), DU SOLEIL POUR LES GUEUX (2000), CE VIEUX RÊVE QUI BOUGE (2001), PAS DE REPOS POUR LES BRAVES (2003), VOICI VENU LE TEMPS (2005), LE ROI DE L’ÉVASION (2009), L’INCONNU DU LAC (2013), RESTER VERTICAL (2016), VIENS JE T’EMMÈNE (2022)