“Misericordia” – Guiraudie revisits the pastoral thriller

“So this is how you look for mushrooms?” mischievously says the abbot in Alain Guiraudie’s new film – portrayed by a brilliant Jacques Develay – when he overhears two childhood friends bickering about soil. One of them (Félix Kysyl) has just come back to his native village for the funeral of his former boss, a baker, and the other (Jean-Baptiste Durand) can’t stand the fact that he’s moved in with his widowed mother (Catherine Frot), and is seeing their mutual childhood friend (David Ayala).

Guiraudie’s films are all about adventurous forays, sometimes bucolic strolls (That Old Dream That Moves and Staying Vertical), sometimes deadly cruising (Stranger by the Lake) or wild love stories (The King of Escape). Here, it takes the appearance of a homecoming to the small village of Saint-Martial, in the French region of the Cévennes. For Guiraudie, desire is like mushrooms: it grows where you least expect it, when you least expect it, and takes on unpredictable forms. While its consumption sometimes proves fatal, sometimes divine, one thing is certain: it sprouts onto the earth. 

Adapted from part of his novel Rabalaïre (2021), the film pokes fun at the circulation of desire, but with a chastity that enhances the erotic frustrations of its characters. Like Pasolini’s Theorem, but turned inside out, its main character seems to be attracted to everyone except the one man who actually desires him. It is from the tragedy of this solitary love that Misericordia draws its juiciness and humor. The film multiplies points of erotic tension and sets them against the bleak backdrop of a countryside all the more abandoned for having just lost its only baker. While the phalluses remain, with one exception, neatly tucked away in their underwear, they do grow, both small and (very) large, on the ground. You can’t get your hands on them, but they’re everywhere, which is hardly surprising when you learn that Saint Martial is the apostle of Gaul. Truculent and turgid, the film’s pleasure lies in its restraint in completely embracing any of its veins, from the pastoral thriller to a chronicle of the hidden France. 

And as desire resists its consummation, the film ends up creating a eulogy to the tenderness of the Saint, unfaithful to the laws of men and gods, but faithful to that of his heart. His goodness ultimately spreads onto the entire film, which ends with a handshake. Spiritual like no other, combining gravity and lightness with a powerful sense of gaiety, Misericordia offers another galvanizing deep dive into Guiraudie’s own universe.