Misericordia

An immediate and uncanny paranoia attends the return of Jérémie (a suitably inscrutable Félix Kysyl) to his rural hometown of Saint-Martial in southwestern France. The visit is precipitated by the death of his former boss, the town’s master baker, with whom he was presumably in love. As with other films by the acclaimed French writer-director Alain Guiraudie (Stranger by the Lake, TIFF ’13), presumably remains the operative term, guiding a twisted tale in which pervasive desire is often commingled with surprise, humour, uncertainty, and foreboding.

Appealing yet mysterious, Jérémie’s sensual presence is immediately and progressively destabilizing to all around him, as he prolongs his stay with the widow Martine (Catherine Frot), who also happens to be the mother of his childhood friend, the brutish Vincent (filmmaker and actor Jean-Baptiste Durand). The duo’s interactions are terse and laden with resentment, but clearly erotically charged. When a tussle goes awry, Misericordia swerves into noir territory with absurdist undertones, and an ensuing investigation spirals around a loner neighbour, ineffectual gendarmes, and a nosy country priest — seemingly the only inhabitants in this dewy, mountainous village perpetually bathed in twilight.

With a thrilling mix of the macabre and his signature brand of erotic pastoral mysticism — alongside shades of Hitchcock meets Pasolini — Guiraudie usurps the traditional morality tale by focusing instead on the mysteries of desire. Holding a suggestive charge throughout, Misericordia’s subtly shifting tones are conveyed in a Courbet-hued, autumnal realism masterfully captured by director of photography Claire Mathon, instilling elegance in its wayward yearning.

ANDRÉA PICARD

Content advisory: violence, mature themes