To shoot his new thriller “Misericordia,” Alain Guiraudie went to the only place in the world capable of dredging up an all-consuming, metaphysical melancholy just by crossing the city limits: home. The film is set in the French director’s native region of Occitanie, during the rainy autumn season when fresh mushrooms crop up almost as frequently as secrets. It’s there, in the sleepy town of Saint-Martial, where the lascivious Jérémie (Félix Kysyl) violently collides with his past when he returns home to attend the funeral of his former employer. Jérémie’s presence immediately upends Saint-Martial’s sluggish pace. He is a virus entering a perfect, unchanging ecosystem, slowly working his way through the village until his influence has devoured every remaining shred of stasis. Suddenly, Saint-Martial is alive — but vitality comes at a lethal cost.
Guiraudie — who is openly gay and has been making queer-centric films for decades — innately understands how awkward it is to return to the place you grew up. Coming home is strange enough as it is. But it's a particularly delicate experience for queer people, who often spend a fair share of their childhood and adolescence conforming to the rigid norms of their surroundings. But Guiraudie has never exactly been interested in working within the confines of reality. His films slant toward the surreal, hooking viewers with their forward-thinking attitudes toward sex and sexuality. Guiraudie celebrates the frivolity of a steamy glance or a leering gaze, and “Misericordia” is no different, which is precisely why it’s such an exciting venture in the realm of contemporary queer filmmaking. The film diverts expectations at every turn, shirking the burdens of the sob story you might see in a typical gay homecoming film. Here, nobody gives a second thought to the fact that Jérémie is queer. His appearance even encourages introspection among the townspeople. Maybe they’ve all got a little sugar hidden in their tank.
