Film Review: Alain Guiraudie Delivers His Most Accessible Film with ‘Misericordia’

Alain Guiraudie’s filmography has always been an acquired taste. You either fully buy into his often deadpan pieces of work or are totally alienated by how his films are structured and require multiple layers of examination to peer into his central queer subtexts. All of his movies, one way or another, either directly (or implicitly) discuss his sexuality through the prism of the protagonists he presents, usually emphasizing nature, where all human life begins to blossom and grow. 

With the aid of cinematographer Claire Mathon (a frequent collaborator of his and Céline Sciamma), Guiraudie opens his latest motion picture, Misericordia, with a long, eerie tracking shot of our main character, Jérémie (Félix Kysyl), returning to his hometown to attend the funeral of his former boss, Jean-Pierre (Serge Richard). Since he lives far away, Jean-Pierre’s widow, Martine (Catherine Frot), asks Jérémie if he doesn’t mind staying for a few days, which he accepts. However, this angers Martine’s son, Vincent (Jean-Baptiste Durand), who becomes even more rattled by his presence when Jérémie sleeps in Vincent’s childhood room, taking space as if he is her mother’s son. 

While Jérémie takes the time to reunite with his former crush, Walter (David Ayala), and spend a bit of time with Martine, Vincent is furious and continuously stalks Jérémie, going so far as to threaten him to leave the village and never come back. We don’t much understand why he behaves like this, but the animosity is clearly sparked by an event that occurred in the past (which Guiraudie never explains, not that it matters too much).

However, the story quickly takes a dark turn as the two eventually duke it out in a shockingly violent brawl, the most harrowing scene of any Guiraudie film to date. The next day, Vincent has disappeared, leading Martine to worry for his safety and for the police (played by Salomé Lopes and Sébastien Faglain), who are eventually brought upon to investigate, to suspect that someone might have killed him. We do know what happened with Vincent in the aftermath of the fight, but for the purposes of his review, this detail will be kept under wraps so you can discover what has happened. 

Knowing more than most supporting characters do gives Misericordia an intriguing sense of tension. One wonders how our protagonist will get out of a predicament he has sadly stuck himself in and how he will ever leave the village with more knowledge than Martine, or anyone else, does. Of course, this being a Guiraudie film, the filmmaker layers this mystery with a queer subtext, this time more direct and confrontational than some of his previous works. Jérémie knows what happened to Vincent but does not want to tell anyone what happened, even the police, who attempt to extract information from him by breaking into Martine’s home at night and interrogating him while he sleeps (that’s kinda creepy, though). 

The only person willing to help Jérémie is the town’s Priest (Jacques Develay), who is so infatuated with him he’ll do anything to protect Jérémie in the eyes of the police and of the inhabitants, going so far as to pretend they have an ongoing sexual relation together and that Jérémie frequently leaves Martine’s home at night to sleep in the same bed. This brings some momentary laughs to an otherwise grim movie, including a shot of the bare-naked priest, fully revealing that he isn’t faking his lust for Jérémie. It’s then clear that the tension Guiraudie has been meticulously building is sexual and that Vincent’s jealousy towards Jérémie is likely sparked by the same lust the Priest has for him. 

Unfortunately, Guiraudie doesn’t deepen enough the plethora of themes he wants to tackle in his picture for them to have a meaningful impact. For better or worse, Misericordia seems like his most accessible movie, which is both a feature and a bug. It’s not hard to figure out why Vincent is jealous of Jérémie and why the Priest isn’t hiding his desires toward the protagonist. It’s also not difficult to recognize that, in filling his movie with as much catholic imagery as possible, Jérémie’s guilt turns into sin when he’s directly confronted by a figure who will keep his secret safe when he shouldn’t. In the eyes of God, this is the ultimate sin, but as the Priest says, everyone has something to hide. 

Conversely, as much as Mathon’s images showcase the raw violence of an unflinching nature taking back its rights, Guiraudie’s dialogues are the weakest of his career. Not known for holding our hands, the French filmmaker writes drawn-out dialogued scenes that spell out, ad infinitum, what the movie is about and how the characters are perpetually feeling. This gives a certain sense of distance to our relationship with either Jérémie, or anyone else in the movie, while his other productions were less reliant on dialogues and more on the unspoken feelings of their protagonists to convey how they truly are to the audience. 

As a result, we mostly feel at arm’s length with the internal (and external) conflict of Misericordia, despite Guiraudie (once again) successfully flipping heteronormative views of homosexuality in cinema to its head and directly challenging straight viewers by making them witness to Jérémie’s carnal desires. Few queer filmmakers have the guts to do what Guiraudie accomplishes here, and he should be more than lauded for doing what most people are afraid of showing, even if this movie may be the weakest of his career. 

Despite this, there’s enough suspense to keep us moderately invested in how this predicament will wrap up, and it probably won’t be a happy ending for all involved. Kysyl compels as Jérémie, but it’s Develay who steals the spotlight away from everyone as the Priest, not only in his expert sense of comedic timing but in his delivery of dialogues that are the only ones where Guiraudie doesn’t spoonfeed the audience with the film’s thesis and instead offers a profound meditation on why the nature of death may be necessary for the survival of the human race. 

Of course, Guiraudie doesn’t have the answers to this predicament or fully knows why humans eventually all fall victim to the ultimate punishment. Still, it’s worth considering when the nature of living is, by design, unfair, cruel, and punishing. How can we make this world better? Sadly, we can’t. Guiraudie knows this – and by the end of Misericordia, you may also think this way. 

SCORE: ★★1/2