A provocative stranger returns home in 'Misericordia,' a thriller free of convention

Alain Guiraudie’s marvelously unsentimental French thriller begins successful a temper of death, 1 it ne'er rather shakes arsenic events prime up successful a twisty way. A baker has died. He lived successful the distant commune of Saint-Martial, making loaves for what look to beryllium a tiny fig of neighbors. Jérémie (Félix Kysyl), astatine 1 clip a teenage apprentice to this antheral but present a drifting, wan-faced big with a lank harvest of hair, has returned to basal by his corpse and grieve.

Or possibly he’s not grieving truthful overmuch arsenic thinking, backmost successful the municipality of his boyhood wherever the baker’s widow, Martine (Catherine Frot), stirred by Jérémie’s presence, insists helium enactment a portion successful the bare chamber of his ex-chum Vincent (Jean-Baptiste Durand), present grown up and moved retired with his ain family. There’s a backstory here, salty and suggestive, but Guiraudie sprinkles it connected arsenic sparingly arsenic helium can, waiting for his crippled to emergence to fullness. Jérémie whitethorn person loved his mentor, his wife, too, possibly much than that. And Vincent isn’t brainsick astir his homecoming.

“Misericordia,” some arsenic a rubric and a film, would suggest a plunge into mourning or, to spell by the Latin translation, thing adjacent to compassionate mercy. Delightfully, Guiraudie has nary involvement successful making that movie. He launches Jérémie down the thoroughfare similar an inscrutable chaos cause successful rumpled denim, tensely wrestling successful the woods with Vincent and flirting with Walter (David Ayala), a slovenly layabout who doesn’t caput drinking with company. Every country brings different furniture to Kysyl’s performance, by turns curious, lonely and aggressive.

Jérémie is inserting himself wherever helium doesn’t beryllium — you consciousness it earlier you spot it. Guiraudie, champion known for his 2013 erotic enigma “Stranger by the Lake,” has ne'er chiseled his images with specified Chabrolian tautness arsenic helium does here. A filmmaker with a queer focus, helium writes characters that are particularly liberated from morality, making them dimensional but besides dangerous. “Misericordia” plays retired successful a watercourse of nighttime surprises (these are bakers with ungodly hours), including the repeated show of Vincent hovering implicit the houseguest sleeping successful his aged bed.

Félix Kysyl, left, and Jacques Develay successful “Misericordia,” a thriller that accommodates the vagaries of quality behaviour and leaves punishment speech arsenic a secondary concern.

(Sideshow and Janus Films)

None of this gets churning cellos oregon the jump-scare attraction of astir American thrillers (Marc Verdaguer’s people walks a tightrope of synthy suggestiveness). Even erstwhile determination is simply a execution — it’s a existent ouch — Guiraudie continues with his insistent, deliberate flow, a blase interaction that volition either endear you to the film’s subversion oregon marque you yearn for thing much melodramatic.

Try to defy that impulse. You’ll miss the brace of awkward section cops (Sébastien Faglain and Salomé Lopes) who, successful a invited agelong of acheronian comedy, attack the lawsuit successful specified an unhurried, nonjudgmental manner, it feels much similar a hobby for them. They, too, support immoderate unusual midnight hours, arsenic does a berobed section priest, Father Philippe (Jacques Develay), whose demeanor hides a bold streak and a penchant for showing up successful the close spot astatine the incorrect time.

This isn’t the benignant of puzzle thriller successful which each the elements click into spot with a thudding literalism that compliments an attentive eye. It’s 1 that accommodates the vagaries of quality behavior, leaving punishment speech arsenic a secondary concern. And similar the community’s morel mushrooms that look to turn good implicit shallow, hastily dug graves, there’s a consciousness of mulchy inevitability astir it. You can spell location again, “Misericordia” suggests, possibly with much of an docket the 2nd time. Packing guilt is optional.