A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

A Guide to All Creative Directors

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The best film of 2024 according to Cahiers du cinéma

And why it is precisely Misericordia by Alain Guiraudie

The best film of 2024 according to Cahiers du cinéma  And why it is precisely Misericordia by Alain Guiraudie

In The Man in the Woods by Alain Guiraudie, first place in the best films of 2024 was awarded by Cahiers du cinéma, the most prestigious French film magazine. The magazine’s mission has always been to break from conventional patterns, to be avant-garde and anticipate it, finding perfect coherence between the cinema of Hong Sang Soo with In Water, the Indian work All We Imagine As Light by Kayal Kapadia, and Trap by M. Night Shyamalan, also ranked among last year’s unmissable titles. And, in some way, making The Man in the Woods reach the top of their list contributes to the discourse of a militant critique that goes beyond what we already know and to which additional value is attributed thanks to recognition by an institution such as the cinephiles’ bible.       

Not that Guiraudie hasn’t contributed to the concept of auteur over the years by making the unexpected, during the viewing of his films, an essential element of his narratives, which he also achieves in the thriller set in the small town of Saint-Martial, with suspended and indecipherable atmospheres already found in his cult film Stranger by the Lake. And if the Cannes Film Festival did not want it in competition, reserving it only a place in the Première section, then it is the Cahiers who claim its greatness. This time the protagonist is Jérémie Pastor, an almost childlike face behind the expressive wrinkles of actor Félix Kysyl, who returns to his hometown for the funeral of the father of his old friend Vincent (Jean-Baptiste Durand), with whom he will clash due to the ambiguous relationship he establishes with the mother Martine (Catherine Frot).

Everything is strange, everything is tense in the man’s return and the relationships he builds with these long-time acquaintances. There is erotic tension, animal violence, constant excitement in not knowing exactly how things will unfold, and, consequently, there is a mixture of fear in front of the unexpected that we know will suddenly appear in the scene. And, in a case like The Man in the Woods, it increases as the protagonist’s wariness grows toward a kind of final resolution, only vaguely achieved, enough to put an end to the film and make sense of the thriller genre employed. Félix arrives placidly in the town, on a road we follow in the opening credits, taking one, then two, then another turn, finally arriving in a place that seems empty, unreal. Where no one exists except the characters Alain Guiraudie brings to the screen. Minimalist, essential, there isn’t a soul in the godforsaken village, not only because it’s the fate of many small countryside towns, but because that’s how the director wants the scenes to be: unreal, bare, frozen in time. Under the shade of tall trees, to hide from view, as his strangers did by the lake in 2013.

A stage without wings, but with houses and churches, branches and leaves hiding secrets. And in which it is passion and mercy—cited in the film’s original title, Miséricorde—that move the characters. The Man in the Woods is a game of roles and improbable declarations, of characters moving as if pulled by strings with Guiraudie as the puppeteer. Everything is stylized, impenetrable yet clear, protagonists and actions are driven solely by impulses, and nothing else is needed to move forward. No words, no explanations, no intricate analyses of every gesture or glance. There is desire, and there is forgiveness; there is lust, and there is compassion. There is also death. The end. In a film that remains aleatory, drawn from a segment of the novel Rabalaïre also written by the director, and which finds strength in its imperturbability, the choice of Cahiers du cinéma is driven by the desire to place cinema on a ground that is not necessarily clear, crystalline, easy to read. But one that is also not strictly tied to investigation, to digging and discovering, but rather letting a distinctly imaginative component feed the seventh art. It’s a story not deeply explored, but suggested; not written, but whispered. It’s cinema that can be found by chance, that doesn’t manifest ostentatiously, and that, for this reason, one must know where to look for it, like the characters in the film and their hunt for porcini mushrooms.