L'uomo nel bosco

Misericordia takes its time to shoot and when it starts shooting, there is no way you can contain your laughter till it crescendoes in the final shot. With very mild humour peppered across the film, it narrates the story of a taciturn man who visits a village to attend a mentor's funeral. There he meets his mentor's wife, his son, and a priest - who all seem to be saying something else from what they have in mind. What I love about Misericordia is how suddenly it shifts its writing to make the viewer laugh, all in a deadpan style. Reminded me of Deerskin (2019) and The Bra (2018).

(Watched at the 2024 MAMI Mumbai Film Festival.)

The film's qualities are manifold. A script whose progression we never guess at, which keeps the viewer curious, imagining certain developments, some of which never come to pass. Subtle acting direction. Photography and sets that accentuate the drama. The absence of music, which lends permanent weight to all the images. The documentary element on mushrooms. Themes centered on the relationship between the characters: girlfriend, unrequited love, parent-child relationship, homoeroticism, but also humor bordering on parody and the ridiculous.

We understand that Guiraudie must admire Pier Paolo Pasolini's Théorème (1967), not for the universe, the bourgeoisie and the abstraction, but for the homoerotic possibilities. That said, we're not bored with Miséricorde.

Flaws: no empathy for the characters. We follow their evolution through the dramatic arc, but we're not concerned by what happens to them. The parish priest's dialogues at the end take the film away from naturalism and into the realm of the ridiculous or even Z-series, unless it's deliberate humor. But in the end, this is what makes the film so interesting: its constant navigation on the edge of the abyss of indecision and even ridicule, without falling into it.

Well, when there is death of a loved one, we don't want that to be a permanent loss. Each main character here carries a kind of loss with them. Human nature compels us to maintain hope; hope that there could be something more, eventually. Perhaps not a replacement of that person, exactly, but a kind of consolation. That's essentially what this movie is about, I feel, and each character searches for this consolation in their own, sometimes weird, ways. I can appreciate the humanity at work here.

Where the movie is lacking, for me, is Jeremy's backstory. Oddly, even though the movie is centred on Jeremy, we never really learn THAT much about him. On a practical level: how is he able to be unemployed for so long? On a deeper level: why is he doing what he is doing, exactly? Why is he behaving in this clingy way, never wanting to leave this house? Why did he love his former boss; how did that strong connection come to be? These questions are never really answered because there is little context/background here.

Also... do cops not need warrants in France? I'm no expert on the French legal system but it stretched believability for me that cops can just barge into a house like that, displaying no warrant, to interrogate Jeremy. Odd. But there are quite a few odd things in this odd little film. I don't necessarily mind that.

I very much enjoyed this gentle tale of intrigue and murder most foul. It really reminded me of the world of Twin Peaks, where nothing is really what it seems and you can't be sure of who anyone is or why they do what they do. There are so many unspoken elements of the production, that you're still guessing about elements of the story when the curtain closes.

However, that to me in a movie isn't necessarily a problem because not everything in life is neat and tidy anyway. There is some great acting and lovely cinematography and a nice seam of rich dark humour running through the affair. Slow paced but no less good for that.

"Misericordia" is Latin for "mercy," and I gave the clever yet very narrowly contoured screenplay much of it. The performances were excellent, and the antagonist was easy enough to dislike, but there were too many unexplored backstories that needed to fold out; instead, the guesswork laid the story flat because most of the characters were thinly developed despite the available fodder for deep character studies.

The film is not without its philosophical musings on guilt and compassion for forgiveness, so Guiraudie had all the makings of a much greater film in hand.

I am fully aware that Misericordia was chosen for the best film of 2024 by Cahiers du cinéma and nominated for multiple César awards-but without this excellent cast ensemble and the outstanding cinematography, this film should have been a suspense short, not a feature.