MISERICORDIA

Guiraudie knows that a lot of us have seen “Stranger by the Lake” and probably want more of that — heads bobbing over torsos and sunbathers’ uncut gems, sure, but also tight, clean narrative lines; clever structure and pacing; traditional suspense, a death that breaks your heart, cogent gay politics.

Maybe there’s another one of those in him, an ultimately moral oblong masterpiece. But it’s not as though he’s lost the plot. I’d say he’s interested in threatening genres and curious about how much murder he can get away with. “Misericordia” is film noir with the lights turned on. Even when its characters are working your nerves, it tickles. Guiraudie is playing those nerves like a harp.

And so our natural sympathies are redirected and redirected again as the comparatively engaging and telegenic Jérémie becomes the Guiraudie equivalent of an unreliable narrator.

“Misericordia,” we eventually realize, between the absurdist gags about sexuality and the sardonic sideswipes at religious hypocrisy, does not follow a fish attempting to swim in unfamiliar waters, nor even an out-of-towner cat set loose amongst the local pigeons. Instead it’s a slippery, changeable parable about a particularly amoral cuckoo looking to feather a new nest.

Film Facts

• 2024 Louis Delluc winner
• The movie is filmed in Aveyron in the region of Occitanie where the director is from.