Misericordia

Jérémie’s return to his hometown for the funeral of his former boss gradually morphs into a paradoxical spiral of contradictions, gory mysteries, and unforeseen sexual prospects. As the young man’s temporary stay at the home of the deceased man’s widow extends, it gets increasingly overshadowed by a disappearance, a neighbor with a threatening disposition, and a priest with easily misunderstood (at a minimum) intensions. Similarly to his hero here, the unpredictable French filmmaker Alain Guiraudie also attempts his own atypical homecoming to the magnetic narrative codes that determined it is Stranger by the Lake he deserves to be commemorated evermore for. Only, Misericordia shows no inclination of adhering to the exemplary coordinates of an erotic thriller in all its minutiae. On the contrary, it eludes classification, sets itself apart as an offbeat and uncompromisingly hybrid film, promising nothing but the fact that up to the last frame it will continue to enrich the slow-burning amalgamation of slithering eroticism and death by adding surreal notes of comic absurdity.