Alain Guiraudie signs with “ Mercy », which is coming out on screens, a film inspired in part by his novel “Rabalaïre” and publishes “ For centuries of centuries » a sort of sequel…
Deep in the woods of Miséricorde, the meetings with multiple issues between Jérémie (Félix Kysyl) and the priest (Jacques Develay) – and the mushrooms. (Photo Les Films du Losange)
Initially a thick novel of 1039 pages entitled “Rabalaïre», which, easy to access, offering a thousand stories intertwining around the main plot, can be read with ease and jubilation. It is a literary stroll which transports us between Clermont-Ferrand and Aveyron to the heart of the village of Gogueluz where we follow a certain Jacques Bangor who became particularly linked to Rosine who ran the village bar with her husband Raymond deceased.
By strolling, by bike, by car or even on foot, he discovers himself while surveying the sensitivity of others. Notably that of Marc Gabin, “an ugly and badly built but very endearing man who had made him taste Brigoule, a clandestine alcohol distilled from Dourougne, a very rare tuber in the country which increases libido, sexual power, muscular strength, endurance and even lucidity. » Jacques also became friends with Jean-Marc Berthomieu, the village priest with whom he went to pick mushrooms and who would later guess a dark secret that the young man clumsily concealed. And then there is Eric Fabre, Rosine’s son, who hardly appreciates the presence of this Rabalaïre of Jacques (Rabalaïrein Occitan, means “a guy who goes to the right, to the left, a man who likes to go to people’s houses”), because he thinks he wants to sleep with his mother and he doesn’t like that at all.
Picaresque novel, raw and sexual, but also romance novel, political and social novel, local novel, detective and sometimes fantastic, ” Rabalaïre » explains the POL editor, “ It is the revisited story, funny and cruel, of a forgotten France, of the impoverishment of the countryside and the provinces, the history of the country people, of their bodies, of their language, the history of the declassed, of a very diverse people with unbridled and uninhibited morals, and multiple, sometimes mystical, beliefs. » All in a popular, oral, powerful and joyful language which captivates and seduces with the force of its words and its desire to bring out images in the reader. “ I love these characters who take charge of all their complexity », specifies Alain Guiraudie who signs a masterpiece of which we will not reveal the central police knot.
“For the ages of centuries”, a novel about forgiveness and understanding others
Then there is “ For centuries of centuries ”, the continuation of “ Rabalaïre » which can be read independently of the previous one since the author gives us a very detailed summary at the beginning. Here it is Jacques who speaks in a long monologue where it will be about guilt, his homosexuality, but above all empathy, understanding of others. “ I wanted to write a novel about forgiveness, explains Alain Guiraudie, and I am here through my writing in a mystical materialization aimed at bringing together republican and religious concepts. A way of bringing my communist ideas and my original culture which is very Catholic to life together.»
We find in this shorter novel (422 pages nevertheless) Jacques Bangor and Jean-Marie Berthomieu, very singular priest of Gogueluz, united by a terrible secret and by another even stranger: “ The priest takes Jacques to the kingdom of the dead, through a trance, thanks to an infusion of hallucinogenic mushrooms. And by dint of love and infusion, of desire for fusion – no doubt also because it is the only escape for Jacques Bangor, as the grip of a gendarmerie investigation tightens around him -, they have merged for good on a final journey. »
Strange novel, spiritualist “ For centuries of centuries » tells an experience that the reader will share with the characters. “ I researched a lot and was interested in rituals to write my book», indicates Alain Guiraudie, eroticism is very strong in the Catholic religion, and that is why there is a very powerful contemplative eroticism in “For the Ages of Ages”. We follow characters who enter a spiritual and literary moment. So, here we are, caught up in the spiritual, political, erotic and social adventures of these “two characters in one”, who try to spread love and compassion around them, with often excessive freedom and generosity. But how can we live and love in the body and with the mind of another? Alain Guiraudie, replies the editor “ makes this metaphysical and theological question a formidable, funny and colorful contemporary epic, at once a romantic and religious tale, a fierce political fable, a social satire, a liturgical and mystical love novel. We witness strange religious ceremonies, more than bizarre priestly practices, even a dangerous exorcism in an attempt to free and dissociate Jacques and Jean-Marie. » It is certain that this new book confirms the delightful and limitless novelistic invention of Alain Guiraudie.
« Dark matter exists »
«What a novelspecifies its author, has a cantic side where I enjoyed rediscovering the beauty and naivety of certain prayers that I have reproduced here. We are thus very much in the relationship with God with a mystical side and an astrophysicist’s vision “. Indeed, we can read on page 65: “Dark matter exists, for example, no one has been able to see or touch it and scientists are convinced that it exists…it’s a certainty, it is around us, it makes up at least half of the universe » showing how Alain Guiraudie multiplies the approaches to the Catholic religion which has been shaped greatly in relation to death and the cosmos with very close links between the two. “ There is a constant concern for me to try to understand the religion of a mythological subject. And my mythology for me is Christian mythology », concludes Alain Guiraudie, who has created a powerful novel to be placed alongside Maupassant’s ‘Horla’. A flamboyant work where is analyzed in detail through mind-blowing scenes and dialogues punctuated with moments highlighting the value of silences, the weight of chance and necessity in the course of our lives.
“Mercy” a film in the form of a masterpiece
Catherine Frot with all the characters without the hero in “Miséricorde” (Photo Les Films du Losange)
And finally there is “ Mercy » the new feature film by Alain Guiraudie who is also a powerful filmmaker whose “ The stranger of the lake » had impressed the spectators. It is from a few chapters of “Rabalaïre” that Alain Guiraudie drew the narration of his film which was presented at Cannes last spring. By adapting it of course, by transforming numerous elements, notably certain names, the author knowing with relevance that good literary ideas do not necessarily give rise to good cinematographic ideas.
The plot, quite simple, and not at all simplistic, is centered on the character of Jérémie (in the novel we have seen his name is Jacques) who returns to Saint-Martial (a village located again in Aveyron, between Larzac and the Cévennes) for the burial of his former baker boss. He settles in for a few days with Martine (the Rosine of the novel), his widow played by a Catherine Frot as we have never seen her, in a state of grace and not only because of the title of the film. Powerful, mysterious, she appears and here we are, like Jacques, completely won over. But things for him are not going to go smoothly, to say the least, Vincent (the Eric of the novel) the widow’s son (played by Jean-Baptiste Durand, the director of “ Junkyard dog “) not accepting that this Rabalaïre (the term is not used here but the spirit remains) settles in the house, again claiming that he could seduce his mother.
The drama is inevitable and will take place while an abbot with strange intentions (poignant and funny Jacques Develay), Walter ((the Marc of the novel) a neighbor armed with a rifle, (intense David Ayala) a nosy gendarme, and his insightful assistant, without forgetting Martine, will embark on a race towards a truth that is slipping away. Let us also note the magnetic presence of Félix Kysyl, exceptional in density in the skin of Jérémie, taciturn in search of the salvation of his soul, and that of the mushrooms. which as in the book by Sacha Guitry and the feature film by François Ozon “ When autumn comes » become characters in the story in their own right.
« I really wanted to film autumn”
« My moviespecifies Alain Guraudie, it’s the return to the country of a young guy who finds his friend from adolescence and youth and things don’t go very well between them “. Evoking in what is ultimately a breathtakingly masterful thriller, where the emphasis is placed on the value of silences through very close-ups on faces, the notions of family cocoon, the idea of fault and forgiveness. Alain Guiraudie specifies about his staging: “ I really wanted to film autumn, which is a character in its own right in the story. And I wanted to make an erotic film without sexual acts. » The photography entrusted to Claire Mathon, who produces work worthy of the great Flemish painters, contributes greatly to this. We are captivated from one end of the film to the other by its poisonous beauty, and Alain Guiraudie who also sought the truth of his characters in all their unsaid signs signs a great disturbing, dreamlike film on the borders of the fantastic where the we will see that the dead sometimes have (despite themselves, of course) a more intense power of attraction than many living people. The happiness is total and like the postman in the Cain novel with the famous title he rings with Alain Guiraudie several times.
Jean-Rémi BARLAND
Alain Guiraudie: “Rabalaïre” POL – 1039 pages – €29.90; “For the centuries of centuries” POL – 422 pages, €26 – “Miséricorde” film released in theaters.
