Misericordia

AroView: Messing with you in a mirthful way, this is a beguiling tale of crime and cover-up, social entanglement and repressed passion among a group of French villagers mourning the death of a merchant baker.

But death is about to strike twice in their leafy idyll after the return of a handsome employee (Félix Kysyl) variously upsets and arouses those connected to the deceased. Less overtly sexual yet more fluid than his LGBT head-turner, ‘Stranger By The Lake’ (2013), director Alain Guiraudie’s distinctive mix of the sombre and the playfully absurd make this one to savour for fans of layered arthouse cinema.

“This is rigorous filmmaking of the highest order, controlled and precise to the exclusion of anything extraneous —evidenced by its taut 100-minute runtime.” ~Ankit Jhunjhunwala, The Playlist

“Misericordia is film noir with the lights turned on. Even when its characters are working your nerves, it tickles. Guiraudie is playing those nerves like a harp.” ~Wesley Morris, The New York Times

“A superb thriller that employs common genre devices for a canny and caustic rumination on right and wrong, love and lust, virtue and vice.” ~Nick Schager, The Daily Beast