Comedy has heavenly hosts feuding

A still from The Brand New Testament. PICTURE / SUPPLIED

Whanganui Film Society's official opening night film is the screening of the 2015 Belgian/French co-production The Brand New Testament (Le tout nouveau testament).

This irreverent comedy stars some of France's favourite comedic actors including Yolande Moreau, François Damiens and Catherine Deneuve. The screening is open to members only, with memberships available online at whanganuifilmsociety.org.nz or from 7pm at the venue.
Prices have changed slightly this year: Full membership entitles admission to all 32 films in the 2018 season and is now $95 or $75 for discounted or returning members; half year memberships are $50, and 3-film samplers are now available for $25. Youth under 18 years can get a full year membership at a subsidised rate of $25 (less than $1 per film!). All memberships can be paid off by instalment. Visit the website for details.

Synopsis
"In Belgian director Jaco Van Dormael's universe, God (Benoit Poelvoorde) is a mean-spirited bastard lounging around his Brussels apartment in dressing gown and trackies, watching sport on TV and wreaking havoc on the world from his DOS-run PC. Goddess (the marvellous Yolande Moreau), his long suffering wife, sticks to her embroidery and bides her time. But 10-year-old daughter Éa (played by a fantastic young actress, Pili Groyne) has taken one too many strappings from the old man and resolves — with the help of her better-known older brother — to liberate the world from the malign hand of Dad. Not to give away too much about her mission, she sets about recruiting six disciples whose testimony about their own miracle-free lives will constitute the Brand New Testament. Surreal silliness ensues, with some florid CGI assistance, and memorable encounters with, amongst others, a small boy who wants to be a girl and Catherine Deneuve as a wealthy shopaholic who bonds with a gorilla. Literal adherents of the previous two testaments need not apply, but there's a daffy innocence — a touch of Amélie — about this brand new one."
— Bill Gosden, NZIFF 2015

Review
"This is only the start of a surreal comedy whose endless visual imagination matches its conceptual wit. Most of the humour is too lighthearted to offend all but the most reverent believers, and the movie's inventiveness rarely flags. What plays out on screen is a zany fairytale in the Monty Python mode, but not quite as silly, and with a streak of pictorial poetry.

"The disciples Ea collects include Aurélie (Laura Verlinden), a beautiful woman with a prosthetic arm from a subway accident; Jean-Claude (Didier De Neck), a clerk who quits his job to follow a flock of birds to the Arctic; Marc (Serge Larivière), a sex maniac obsessed with his first adolescent crush; François (François Damiens), a serial killer; the unhappily married Martine (Catherine Deneuve), who falls in love with a gorilla; and Willy (Romain Gelin), a little boy who wants to live out his remaining time as a girl.

"In the Belgian film-maker Jaco Van Dormael's wickedly amusing religious satire, The Brand New Testament, God (Benoît Poelvoorde) is a snarling, meanspirited bully who rules the universe from an apartment in Brussels. Inside his locked office, surrounded by walls of card files, the tyrannical, perpetually bored deity sits behind a computer and plays nasty practical jokes on humans. A favourite pastime is contriving Laws of Annoyance, like making sure that when a piece of toast falls, it always lands with the jelly side down.

"God's wife (Yolande Moreau) is a silent, slavishly dutiful housekeeper; his son, JC, has been reduced to a statue. It remains for his rebellious young daughter, Ea (Pili Groyne), to flout his authority. Sneaking into his office, she hacks into his computer and, in what the news media later names 'DeathLeaks', sends text messages to everyone in the world, informing all of the dates of their deaths. Suddenly, millions are free to use the time they have left as they see fit. One daredevil, assured of a long life, keeps jumping from heights and landing safely.
"Ea flees the family's locked house and her father's wrath through the washing machine, emerges from a Brussels laundromat and sets about collecting disciples to resolve a power struggle between her parents. Meeting a homeless man, she enlists him to help her find six more apostles to add to the 12 depicted in a tapestry of Leonardo's The Last Supper that hangs in God's apartment.

"Once Ea's search for disciples begins, The Brand New Testament slips from satire into absurdist farce, loses its sharper edges and becomes merely silly. But it is still fun. When he leaves the apartment and his computer, the vindictive, rampaging deity, who endures one humiliation after another, is a nobody, and his protest, 'Do you know who I am?' is to no avail.

"In perhaps the riskiest bit of business, God, while looking for Ea, visits a church where he creates a ruckus by rudely breaking into a line at a soup kitchen. A priest gently admonishes him, saying, 'God tells us to love your neighbour as yourself.' 'I never said that,' God snaps. 'I hate myself. I would say hate your neighbour as yourself. The kid said a lot of stuff on the spur of the moment'."
Stephen Holden, NY Times