Alain Guiraudie’s marvelously unsentimental French thriller begins in a temper of dying, one it by no means fairly shakes as occasions decide up in a twisty manner. A baker has died. He lived within the distant commune of Saint-Martial, making loaves for what seem 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 considering, 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 circle of relatives. 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 could 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 no real 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 consuming 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’re feeling it earlier than you see it. Guiraudie, greatest recognized for his 2013 erotic thriller “Stranger by the Lake,” has by no means chiseled his pictures with such Chabrolian tautness as he does right here. A filmmaker with a queer focus, he writes characters which might be 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 previous 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 movement, a complicated 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, method the case in such an unhurried, nonjudgmental method, it feels extra like a pastime for them. They, too, hold 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 appropriate 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 group’s morel mushrooms that appear to develop properly over shallow, rapidly dug graves, there’s a way of mulchy inevitability about it. You may go dwelling once more, “Misericordia” suggests, perhaps with extra of an agenda the second time. Packing guilt is elective.
‘Misericordia’
Not rated
In French with English subtitles
Operating time: 1 hour, 44 minutes
Enjoying: Opens Friday, March 21 at Landmark’s Nuart Theatre, West Los Angeles
