It was the second time Jean-Pierre Mocky had directed a Fredric Brown work ; in the seventies,there was " l'ibis rouge" (based on "knock three one two" ) ;then this "bête de miséricorde " ( based on "the leniant beast )
Well I love Brown ,his novels ,and a genre he probably invented ,the short short-story , his story-telling ,his famous black humor ;Jean-Pierre Mocky's cinema,it is a horse of a different color :what's amazing is the incredibly huge bulk of movies he made ,few meeting commercial and critical success;I was skeptical.
Against all odds, Mocky's cheap directing and low budget work wonders when it comes to creating Brown's gruesome macabre atmosphere ; the lines hit home , and do the great American writer justice:one often heartily laughs .
After finishing off his wife ,suffering torture , Mardet (Mocky)discovers that he can relieve the desperate people who cannot stand their earthly ride anymore by slaying them .A religious man, he prays and praises the Lord and asks Him what to do.
More a farce than a thriller , the director gambles on black humor and caricatures (the cops ,mainly Bernard Menez ,are heavily made up ) and makes his movie an unsung winner. To crown it all, one of them could be a bait to catch this mysterious killer, he becomes a victim;after his wife walked out on him he declares: " My pain will last as long I live" ;"It's already over " says the leniant beast while doing him in.
There are plenty of hilarious scenes :have you ever seen a man in a phone booth calling his wife buried in the cemetary (a long-distance call!) ? Then you've never watched "la bête de miséricorde".
