Misericordia at the Duke Screen Society

(Alain Guiraudie, 2024, 103 min, France, French w/ English subtitles, DCP)
-- Introduced by Prof. Eric Disbro (Romance Studies); Q&A to follow
The teasingly entwined ambiguities of love and death continue to fascinate Alain Guiraudie (Stranger by the Lake), who returns with a sharp, sinister, yet slyly funny thriller. Set in an autumnal, woodsy village in his native region of Occitanie, his latest follows the meandering exploits of Jérémie (Félix Kysyl), an out-of-work baker who has drifted back to his hometown after the death of his beloved former boss, a bakery owner. Staying long after the funeral, the seemingly benign Jérémie begins to casually insinuate himself into his mentor’s family, including his kind-hearted widow (Catherine Frot) and venomously angry son (Jean-Baptiste Durand), while making an increasingly surprising—and ultimately beneficial—friendship with an oddly cheerful local priest (Jacques Develay). In Guiraudie’s quietly carnal world, violence and eroticism explode with little anticipation, and criminal behavior can seem like a natural extension of physical desire. The French director is at the top of his game in Misericordia, again upending all genre expectations.
Ranked Best Film of 2024 by Cahiers du Cinéma
“As in his award-winning Stranger by the Lake, the director's penchant for blending queerness into Hitchcockian genre conventions keeps the story both compelling and enigmatic.” – NPR
“For sheer suspense, few recent thrillers match Alain Guiraudie’s low-key but high-anxiety mystery Misericordia.” – Richard Brody

### Screening as part of the 2026 French Film Festival

https://cinematicarts.duke.edu/screensociety/screenings/misericordia-alain-guiraudie-2024-2026-french-film-festival
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32085997

Let's gather 15 min before the show (which starts at 19:00) in front of the theater.

Group discussion will follow in the Rubenstein lobby or, if there is enough interest, at some downtown location nearby.