Writer-director Alain Guiraudie (Stranger By the Lake) serves up a twisted tale of seduction set in the picturesque French countryside.

Returning to beautiful Saint-Martial for the funeral of his former boss, a baker owner, Jérémie (Félix Kysyl), an out-of-work baker becomes the object of attraction for widow Martine (veteran French actress Catherine Frot). This situation greatly displeases Martine’s son Vincent (Jean-Baptiste Durand), and soon enough there is bloodshed in the woods. Jérémie then finds himself making an increasingly surprising—and ultimately beneficial—friendship with an oddly cheerful local priest (Jacques Develay), while contending with the attention of the local police.

Edgy, eccentric, and unapologetically queer, Misericordia is also notable for the daring way it blurs boundaries: between maternal love and sexual desire, between violent animosity and same-sex attraction, between natural charisma and crafty calculation. Along with suspense and surprise, Alain Guiraudie generates a subtle, slowly escalating humor, as he seamlessly takes his narrative from menace to comedy, which is executed with admirable precision. In its movement from the bedroom to the confession booth and back, this film provides a discomfiting, darkly amusing take on human psychology. In Guiraudie’s quietly carnal world, violence and eroticism explode with little anticipation, and criminal behavior can seem like a natural extension of physical desire.

Winner of the Prix Louis-Delluc, and also named Best Film of the Year by Les Cahiers du cinéma.