misericordia

Looking through the spotty glass of a car window at a winding rural road is a fitting opening to Alain Guiraudie's intriguing, carefully studied Misericordia (the title, in part, references the Latin word for "mercy"). Taking place within a quaint French village, with its characters consisting of only a handful of folks, who seem to be the only ones shown of its citizenry, Guiraudie's film is muddy and knotty.  It's a morality tale that's anti-morality, yet also one that resists the declarative. The film renders a jumble of tones: perversely comic, dry, sensitive, addled.   

The enigmatic Jérémie (Félix Kysyl) comes back to his hometown after the death of an older man he once worked with as a baker. The film suggests that Jérémie was fond of the departed, and perhaps had a sexual relationship with him, or at least, a desire for one. Jérémie stays with the man's widow, Martine (Catherine Frot), for a lodging that seems to be lasting for an abnormally long amount of time. Over the course of these days, Jérémie is threatened by Martine's son Vincent (Jean-Baptiste Durand). Jérémie has taken over Vincent's adolescent bedroom (walls lined with pictures of footballers), and both seem to be harboring simmering animosities towards one another that quickly escalate.

Meanwhile, Jérémie visits, drinks and conversates with a family friend, Walter (David Ayala), for whom Jérémie seems to be attracted to as well (as with his other works, Guiraudie's portrayal of older, schlubby, overweight men as against-the-norm cinematic objects of sexual desire continues in this film as well, quite delightfully). Throughout, a reserved priest (Jacques Develay) mills about in the background, sometimes popping up in the most inopportune moments. This cluster of townsfolk, of intermingling yearnings, makes for a tense, dryly amusing tinderbox. Much of the characters' most uncouth, secretive, and violent behavior occurs within the attractive backdrop of the village's woods—a damp, leafy, fog-draped setting of mushroom foraging and intimate conversations and clashes. 

Guiraudie's film is a well-plotted and characterized tale, its unraveling mostly surprising, with a bevy of understated wit. It doesn't thunder its way to a satisfying conclusion. Instead, it reaffirms its sense of lonesome, dirt-speckled windshield wandering. Claire Mathon, a wonderful cinematographer and frequent collaborator with Guiraudie, shoots the film with a chilly, shrewd feel. The film often cycles through various tones and times of day within its deceptively tranquil settings: the ice blues of morning, the warmth of afternoons, and the unnerving dark of night. When lights suddenly (almost violently so) flick on in a room, the film expresses a flat, unattractive feel (to an amusing degree in one of the priest's later scenes). Through a queer lens, there were some subtleties I was picking up on throughout; there were things resonating with myself deeply that maybe others would feel as strongly about. I sometimes wondered during its screening, Am I the only one seeing this? The film would probably say back to me if it were a person, You aren't that special. ***

-Jeffery Berg

Misericordia, which received praise out of last year's film festivals, is finally making its way to a domestic theatrical release (where best viewed) through Sideshow and Janus Films on March, 21st. 

petite maman

After the ravishing Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Céline Sciamma hones in on an equally intimate, but less visually flashy tale in the quiet and exquisite Petite Maman. It harkens back to Sciamma's excellent Tomboy, which carefully and sensitively examined the perspective of a child. Petite Maman is almost like a fable, a film that could be played in any year as allegorical to one's own life, its power perhaps residing in how one is able to respond to its quaintness. 

After the death of her mother, a young woman (referred in the credits as simply La mère, played by Nina Meurisse) cleans out her childhood home with her partner (Le père, played by Stéphane Varupenne) with her loving, inquisitive daughter Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) in tow. Curious about her mother's childhood, and grieving quietly for her grandmother, Nelly goes to the woods where her mother used to play. There she falls into a parallel existence, meeting Marion (Gabrielle Sanz) who ends up being an eight-year old version of Nelly's own mother. One can imagine the magical realism of films like The Enchanted Cottage or even Back to the Future. Robert Zemeckis' film is a flashy, comical sci-fi quest into wistfully altering the fate of a white middle-class America family; the movie is soaked with wall-to-wall music and consumerism of the 1950s and the 1980s. 

Sciamma's film does not particularly have strong markers of any particular era. Even a hidden patch of "dated" wallpaper could be from the 70s, 80s, or 90s or even an attempt at a sort of vintage chic in the 2000s. The film also thrives not on music or bombast, but on the minutiae of tiny sounds of interactions of things with the body--eating crunchy snacks, drinking milk out of chocolate cereal, spreading shaving cream on the face with a brush, the rustling of sheets on a couch. These smacks and wisps of sounds pepper the film with a seemingly acute purpose of portraying closeness--almost ghostliness--the traces of sounds we leave behind when we interact with the physical world. When music suddenly hits the film, it does so broadly, with a child's perspective of an island pyramid given a particularly dreamy heightened power. The music is almost like a simultaneously satisfying and queasy sugar rush after a long bout of going without carbs. Sciamma's 72-minute film often feels egg shell-fragile, as if it's constantly tip-toeing around in quietness--resisting pushing the viewer's emotions in any particular direction. It's also gently playful and assured. An inside-out sweater made right-side-out and an edit of "transporting to tomorrow" may symbolize the "passing over" to a new plane; shaven faces and put-upon costumes suggest the trickeries of age and identity. Claire Mathon, whose cinematography recently showed prowess with the fuzzed memories of the past in Spencer--particularly when Diana physically and psychologically crawled into the ruins of her childhood home--lenses Petite Maman deftly. The atmosphere of hushed houses at night (shadows playing on the floor like a "black panther") and in the afternoon light, and the damp, leafy autumnal forest where Nelly and Marion play are all striking visual worlds to linger in. ***   

-Jeffery Berg

portrait of a lady on fire

I had to go back and read my 2011 review of Tomboy, before writing this review of director Céline Sciamma's deceptively uncomplicated and breathtakingly beautiful new film Portrait of a Lady on Fire. In Tomboy, Sciamma was able to express deep naturalism and a flair for coming-of-age that felt palpable without falling into familiar tropes. She returns with another singular vision here, a ravishing little tale set around 1770 of an artist, Marianne (Noémie Merlant), commissioned to paint a portrait of a reluctant aristocratic countess Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) who is soon to be married off. Immediately enamored with one another without expressing it through words, the two develop romantic feelings. On daily walks together by sea, Marianne observes Héloïse, trying to absorb her every gesture and expression. Sciamma's slow pacing, deliberate pausing, which can be cloying in most films, really works here in establishing the halting, building passion between the two.

As the story simmers, it's the tactile nature of the movie's aural and visual world which add to its atmosphere. There are distinctive sounds throughout--waves, a fire crackling, brushstrokes and charcoal marks against canvas. As this is a tale told through memory, these sounds indicate the powerful way sound can conjure remembrance. The photography by Claire Mathon (who also shot another compelling-looking pic from this year--Atlantics) institutes a clean, piercing vision. We stay close to Marianne's point-of-view--her eyes on Héloïse, from her back turned in the beginning to a striking profile finale shot. The look of the film is helped in part by the barren sets, seaside landscapes and the two leads, standing out in their exquisite costuming (by Dorothée Guiraud). The paintings in the film were done by Hélène Delmaire. It's really gorgeous work to behold. Just seeing the finishing touches on a green dress were quietly thrilling. ****

-Jeffery Berg