The Brand New Testament

Re-editing the god's creation.

I was looking forward for this since it was from one of my favourite directors who is a very unique storyteller. This is a fantasy and a black comedy from Belgium that was chosen to represent the country in the last Oscars. This is where the critics overtake the film fanatic to like it more. It is a theme that revolves on what would you do if you get a power to write the laws of the nature. A complicated topic, because loopholes are inevitable, but the writer and director did not care much about that and narrated the tale what they just wanted to tell. The story centres on an arrogant and abusive father who is also the creator the universe, especially the designer of the lives on the earth and this tale takes place in the Belgian capital, Brussels. When his bored and concerned daughter Ea, runs away from home to re-edit his creation as advised by her brother JC, he goes after her to ensure everything stay as he had planned. In an unexpected confrontation between father and daughter, in the end who is going to be victorious is the rest of the narration. Remember, there is a post credit scene, which opens the door for a possible sequel, but I don't think that'll happen.

"Giving men knowledge of their own death... Crazy!"

It was a beautiful concept, but I don't think I liked the entire narration, though some of the parts were very interesting. Since it was a fantasy, logics are not required, but the lack of the basic explanation was the setback if you're a broad minded. This film is for the simple minds, especially after knowing the theme you should not anticipate a genuine tale with great adventure and stunts, particularly not visual extravaganza. It was kind of a drama-adventure, something like entering the world that created by you and experiencing all by yourself the positives and negatives of it. Somewhat it was a fun, so definitely not a bad film, but I felt it should have been a lot more than that. Kind of a missed opportunity and falls into a simplicity. All the actors were good, especially the little girl. But I think it's not suitable for the children on the ground of a film character who is associated with sex related stuff, hence it got a few brief nudes. The God character was awesome, even though his acts are predictable I enjoyed the comedies delivered by him. The Ea's undertaking was more a serious and which tries to relate with the Chritianity, especially 'The Last Supper' after her decision to help a few selected people down in the earth over billions. All the above it was barely a magical film, so that's where you've to compromise than to expect crazy stuffs out of it. So in my opinion, it was not delightful as it looks nor the best work of this talented director, but a decent 2 hour long film. 6/10

Next time you are asked to name some famous Belgians, you can add God to the list. He (Benoît Poelvoorde) is a bit of a slob though and lives with his long-suffering wife (Yolanda Moreau) and daughter "Ea" (Pili Groyne). Their son "JC" has moved out and despite his mother's longings, they've lost touch. Now this deity loves nothing more than to cause misery to both mankind and his family, and this irks young "Ea" into doing something about it. She uses his computer to send a message to everyone on earth telling them how long they have left to live - in the hope that is will completely ruin her father's credibility. Not content with that, she decides to recruit half a dozen modern day apostles to change his philosophy a little. To that end she climbs into their washing machine (that's their physical conduit to earth) and sets about recruiting her new friends. Her encounter with the vagrant "Victor" (Marco Lorenzini) makes for a good start as she encounters the whole gamut of society from rich to poor, happy and healthy to anything but, and it turns out that she has quite a decent amount of her own humanity to dispense as the comedy gathers pace and delivers really quiet well. It is satire at it's irreverent best offering a personification of God that could hardly be more different from that put forward by the church, and the surreal nature of some of the characterisations is really quite funny. A glowing fish that just wants to return to the sea; Catherine Deneuve finds new love in a seriously unlikely place; there's some walking on water and when her dad comes after her, well there are some frustrations for him too as he realises that he has no superpowers down amongst the great unwashed. Star of the film? Well that has to be "Kevin" (Gaspard Pauwels) whose message telling him he has 60-odd years left to go encourages him to do just about anything reckless and stupid fearlessly - boy is he in for a shock. Groyne delivers well here as does Thomas Gunzig's writing and whilst it's not exactly sacrilegious, it does ridicule nicely people's psychological dependency on the existence of and belief in an higher power. It's whimsical not spiritual.

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Reno

CinemaSerf