Things are happening in the woods of Aveyron, and desire is growing there like vigorous mushrooms: Alain Guiraudie‘s latest film will be able to delight some and make others bristle, his cinema here striking a great balance between burlesque and thriller, between crime and love. And vice versa.
Félix Kysyl, Jacques Develay – Copyright Les Films du Losange
It’s fun to see Mercy so quickly after When autumn comeseven if we suspect that Guiraudie will lead us down paths that are much more “turgid” thanOzone. But in both films, somewhat under the auspices of Chabrolwe dive into “deep” provincial France, we walk in the autumn-colored woods, we pick mushrooms, and we… kill. Well, the similarities end there… or maybe not, in fact: Guiraudie is less “hot” than usual, and autumnal melancholy seizes its characters – although agitated by an overwhelming desire – like those ofOzone. Even if the conclusion of Mercy is quite different, full of gentleness and kindness: “ I learned to love them all”these are the words spoken by a priest who has a hard-on, and hardly cares about respecting the customs of the church or the laws of men… And the last shot shows hands clenching, in the darkness of a room where we don’t make plans for the future, but still.
But how did we get there? Initially, a former apprentice baker returns to the village where he worked, for the funeral of his former boss, and stays with his widow, causing a slow rise in desire. It is easy to read in this initial postulate of Mercy echoes of Theorem of Pasolini (a comparison that naturally comes to mind when we talk about Guiraudie), but this is as much a false trail as that of the provincial crimes dear to Chabrol. Moreover, we will see fewer phalluses here than usual with the director; it is rather in the humidity of the undergrowth that “mushroom” erections (fleshy morels!) arise. However, the more Jérémie wanders around the Aveyron village, and especially in the woods that surround it, the more desire rises, disturbing this little world which begins to act in an absurd manner. This is where Guiraudiehalfway through, deviates from the expectations of the “ordinary” spectator, and dares to confront its film, its actors, its audience, with a light comedy, generated by situations bordering on burlesque: in the session where we saw the film, many laughs began to arise, laughter of astonishment, laughter of embarrassment also a little.
Chez Guiraudiethe sublime – let us say here the total love that the priest devotes to Jérémie, which illuminates the last part of Mercy – is always tempered (as if to apologize for it) with ridicule: cops break into people’s homes at night to make them talk while they sleep, corpses are buried, dug up and buried again, good swigs of pastis excuse us from putting on each other’s underwear, etc.
When Mercy closes, the main thing is said: desire has won, life continues despite death, the disappearance of the Father, of whom only a blurry photo in swimming trunks remains, will be the opportunity for a new beginning, even if the ‘we don’t really know what. Nothing was explained, the past kept its secrets, shameful or not. The present is a mystery, the future does not yet exist. And that’s very good.
Eric Debarnot
