If you are of a certain age and blessed with an artistic bent, you just might remember the critically acclaimed thriller Stranger by the Lake from 2013. Directed by Alain Guiraudie, here is a lovely paean to French gay nudists who engage in fellatio, tanning, sodomy, the backstroke, and some friendly conversing about the silurus, an invasive species of catfish that eats everything, including ducks and fellow siluruses.
Oh, no! I feel a metaphor coming on.
Yes, there's also a queer, mustachioed murderer on hand, indeed a silurus of sorts. The hunky, tanned, noticeably endowed Michel (Christophe Paou) one day, when he believes all of his fellow bathers have left the beach, drowns his lover, which is an effective but not highly recommended way to end a relationship, especially if there’s a witness on hand.
And the sweet, attractive-with-a-low-fat-body-count Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps) is certainly a witness, but not the sort who discloses crimes to the authorities. Instead, he falls feverishly in love with Michel, and the duo have graphic sex with the aid of body doubles, no doubt to avoid upsetting their mères and pères when the old folks stream Stranger on Amazon Prime for the equivalent of $3.99 in euros.
Now you might be asking, "Why bring up Stranger by the Lake since this review is not focusing on that critically acclaimed, highly entertaining, tense, noirish exercise in gay outdoor-erotica?" Well, for three reasons.
One: The film changed my life. I immediately stopped dating LGBTQI+ serial killers after viewing it.
Two: Stranger's director, Monsieur Guiraudie, has a new offering that was featured at last year's New York Film Festival and is now hitting art houses.
Three: Misericordia has numerous similarities to the director's earlier work while still being quite dissimilar.
Well, for starters, misericordia is Latin for mercy. Relatedly, there's the "misericorde dagger," used to deliver mercy killings during the High Middle Ages, speeding mortally wounded knights out of their misery. Aha!
Anyway, Monsieur Guiraudie has explained: “The title came to me while I was writing the script. For me, mercy exceeds the question of forgiveness. It has to do with empathy, with understanding others beyond any morality. It's about reaching out to others."
However, the mercy strewn about in these two features is anything but selfless. In the former film, Franck is passionately in love with and continually aroused by his neck-slitting man-killer. In Misericordia, a horny, romance-hankering priest (Jacques Develay) is all too ready to absolve the object of his affection, an admitted one-time killer, from a future in a dank cell or worse.
This reminds me of Voltaire's statement: "God is a comedian playing to an audience that is too afraid to laugh." In a Guiraudie offering, God's creatures might not be doubling over with merriment, but you do sense that several are ready to spout a smile . . . and the critics are ready to spout superlatives for Misericordia.
Playlist: "A Dostoevskian masterwork [by] one of the greatest filmmakers working today."
Wall Street Journal: "A sickly funny thriller."
Cahiers Cinema: "The best film of the year."
The antihero here is the thirtyish, not-unattractive Jérémie (Félix Kysyl), who's at that transitional stage of life when one slowly sheds off the bloom of youth while simultaneously displaying the shimmer of future middle-agedness: a transitional stage where men can still play the flirty fool and be forgiven.
Well, we first meet our Jérémie in his auto driving down an empty country road in southern France from his home in Toulouse. The foliage is already red and yellow, so winter can't be far behind. His destination: Saint-Martial, a small town with a population of 238 as counted in 2022.
Jérémie grew up there but has been away for quite a while with no immense yearnings to return. So why now? Circumstances. He's an unemployed baker of breads, his girlfriend and he are no longer an item, and of more significance, his mentor, the man who taught him all about yeast, has suddenly died, a heterosexual master baker he loved with all his heart, an affection that was not returned at least romantically.
Jérémie drives up to his old boss's home to pay his respects. There the new-borne widow, Martine (Catherne Frot), welcomes him into her home and asks the out-of-towner to stay in the old room of her son, Vincent (Jean-Baptiste Durand). Vincent, now married, used to be Jeremie's close childhood friend. He accepts.
Jump to the funeral where the priest intones: "Jean-Pierre left home early to learn his trade as a baker. He devoted his life to giving us bread." Do not mourn, he continues: "We Christians believe that death is not an end. We believe it’s simply a passage into the kingdom of love and light."
That's encouraging.
Afterwards, there's a dinner for family and friends, and folks wonder whether Jérémie will continue the now-shuttered baguette business that services the town and surrounding villages.
Won't the inhabitants just shop for gluten-filled pastries at grocery stores now that Jean-Pierre is dead?
No! No! No! There's no comparison, some insist. This is France, where people live by their bread.
Jérémie ponders the offer, but not before Vincent again and again angrily accuses him of wanting to hook up with his mother and orders the "interloper" to leave town. If Jérémie had, this would have been a very brief film.
What follows is much drinking of pastis; hunting for newly sprung-up porcini in the woods; a possible seduction of a rather heavyset villager; some physical wrangling; a murder; and a small-scale police hunt among the loveliest of landscapes.
Interestingly, when asked if Misericordia is a romance besides being an example of film noir, Monsieur Guiraudie replied: "At first glance, I'd say yes. There's a real love story underlying the whole film. But there are hidden ones as well . . . . Our hero is at the center of this circulation of desire, and little by little he finds himself a prisoner of the village."
Another question he might have been asked is, isn't it also a sly black comedy? One huge joke as intended by Voltaire's God? Of course.
(Misericordia is still playing at a few theaters, although it’s better appreciated with wine than popcorn. Fandango.com will tell you where. While still not streaming, Apple TV+ and Mubi seem to be announcing its forthcoming presence on their sites. Of course, you can always check out JustWatch.com for the final word. Also, I’m told Stranger by the Lake is available on the Criterion Channel, Strand Releasing Amazon Channel, plus a few others you can seek out on your own time.)