LA VIE DE JESUS (Dumont, 1997)
Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date June 18, 2019
Review by Christopher S. Long
Director Bruno Dumont was frequently
likened to Robert Bresson early in his career. This comparison may
have been overblown, not to mention lazy, but Dumont's debut film “La
Vie de Jesus” (“The Life of Jesus”,1997) does remind me of a
specific scene in Bresson's “L'argent” (1983).
At the end of Bresson's magnificent
final film, a crowd of townsfolk gather outside a restaurant to watch
as a notorious ax murderer is led out by police. When he's finally
paraded by, they barely notice and keep looking, still waiting for...
what? A REAL ax murderer, perhaps? Maybe one who actually looks like
the blood-soaked monster who just chopped a kindly family to bits for
no apparent reason, and not that harmless kid the cops just guided
past them. You mean that was him? You can't be serious.
The protagonist of “La Vie de Jesus”
is as seemingly innocuous as can be. Freddy (David Douche, a
non-professional actor like the rest of the cast) is a teenager in a
small rural town in France (Bailleul, near the Belgian border) who
likes to ride his motor scooter, hang out with his do-nothing
friends, and who especially likes to make love to his devoted
girlfriend Marie (Marjorie Cottreel). Freddy still lives with his
attentive mother (Genevieve Cottreel) who makes sure he gets to his
frequent hospital appointments where doctors monitor his epilepsy.
Nothing much happens. Freddy just whiles away one listless day after
another on the path to nowhere, just like everyone else in town.
Bored, alienated, mostly harmless, Freddy is just the young man next
door. Which is the scary part.
Dumont roots his filmmaking firmly in
the physical world (the movie generated some controversy for its
close-up depiction of sexual penetration) and a sense of place. From
the instant Freddy falls face first off his bike onto the hard dirt
ground, he is directly linked to his bleak environment. Dumont
frequently cuts away from characters just hanging out to shots of the
countryside, or to the clouds drifting by, perhaps reminding viewers
of possibilities the unimaginative, earthbound characters fail to
notice. These brief moments of sublime beauty startle, but still fail
to break up either the monotony or the deepening gloom.
(SPOILERS FOLLOW)
Once Kader (Kader Chaatouf), a young
man who appears to be of North African heritage and is labeled an
“Arab” by locals, begins to show interest in Marie, Freddy
finally discovers an outlet for the resentment he had previously
turned impotently against a body that betrays him and a town that
provides no opportunities. Long free-floating bitterness crystallizes
into rage which eventually erupts into murder, leading to an
enigmatic final sequence as Freddy, now a killer just escaped from
police, thrashes shirtless in the grass and finally takes a good long
look at the sky Dumont's camera has shown us before. He sits upright,
a tear trailing down his cheek.
An extension of the Bresson comparison
might encourage a reading of this ending as a moment of redemption or
grace, though not so much if we're talking late-Bresson like
“L'argent.” But Dumont offers no obvious cue to viewers in this
final shot. It certainly doesn't appear to be a plea for sympathy
(aw, gee, that poor racist murderer Freddy) and isn't necessarily
even an insight into Freddy's burgeoning inner life. Perhaps it's an
acknowledgment that real people are too complex to be expressed in
anything like a traditional character arc.
Video:
The film is presented in its original
2.35:1 aspect ratio. From the Criterion booklet: “The new 4k
digital restoration was undertaken from the 35 mm original camera
negative at Eclair in Vanves, France.”
I understand some previous DVD releases
have been underwhelming and suffered from yellow tinting. I don't own
those as comparison points, but this 4K restoration looks fantastic
in Criterion's 1080p transfer. Image quality is sharp throughout, as
is contrast. Everything looks great in motion. Nothing to complain
about at all.
Audio:
The LPCM 2.0 stereo mix is crisp if not
particularly robust. It's not called on to do all that much, and does
it well. Optional English subtitles support the French audio.
Extras:
Criterion has only included a few
extras with the first Dumont film in their collection.
We get an interview with Dumont (16
min.) in which he discusses how his philosophy studies influenced his
first feature. He believes we don't need any more films that
entertain us, we need films that awaken us instead.
The disc also includes a 2014 interview
of Dumont conducted by critic Philippe Rouyer (39min.) and two
excerpts from 1991 episodes of the French TV show “Le cercle de
minuit” (26 min. total). There's also a Trailer (2 min.)
The slim fold-out insert booklet
features an essay by critic Nicholas Elliott.
Final Thoughts:
I'll be honest. I'm not sure yet what
to make of Bruno Dumont's debut film. Perhaps it would help if I had
seen more than just one other Dumont (“Camille Claudel 1915” -
which I liked a lot). All I know is I'm still thinking about it a
week after first seeing it.
Criterion's Blu-ray release doesn't include many extras, but you get a too-notch high-def transfer and an introduction to a filmmaker whose critical reputation has grown considerably in the past twenty years. He's one of John Waters' favorite contemporary directors, which is pretty neat seeing that they're now both in the Criterion Collection.
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