The Brand New Testament

Le tout nouveau testament (LTNT) is Jaco Van Dormael's first new big film since the brilliant Mr. Nobody. For this he returns to his Belgian roots and makes a film about God, a grumpy, abusive middle-aged guy who lives in Brussels with his daughter and submissive wife. His daughter gets fed up and escapes to the real world. LTNT mixes self-depricating humor with drama in a visually pleasing film. The shots composition sometimes reminded me a bit of Wes Anderson's films (the dead-on shots with the character in the middle). The film is rather uplifting and lighthearted and does try to be entertainment mostly but it's not as deep or dramatic as aforementioned Mr. Nobody. Still a very good watch with great acting that should please almost anybody.

Ladies, this one is for you. Some of you may have suspected it all along, but this film confirms God is a chauvinist pig (well, the clues were all there, come to think of it). Luckily - but unbeknownst to most - God also has a daughter, and she's had enough of her mean-spirited, bad-tempered Father and is about to teach Him a lesson.

With the help of her brother (yes, THAT brother) and a somewhat unorthodox band of newly appointed disciples, she's determined to make her own mark on the universe. Needless to say, God's having none of it and tries to do everything in His - considerable - power to stop His rebellious daughter from undoing everything He's worked so hard for.

This hilarious satire is a firework of inspired ideas and just a blast from start to finish. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves intelligent, absurdist comedy in the vein of 'Life of Brian' or 'South Park' and doesn't get easily offended. 8 stars out of 10.

In case you're interested in more underrated masterpieces, here's a list with some of my favorites:

imdb.com/list/ls070242495

This is a fantasy, black comedy. Jesus Christ's kid sister Ea is living with their dad, God, and their mum, Goddess, in a city apartment in Brussels in the present day. She is sick of God's cruel and violent ways and at age 10, puts an end to it by freezing his computer and fleeing the apartment into the city.

Her last act before sabotaging her evil Dad is to text everyone with their date of death as her father, God, has fated it. This causes first a media storm, then great changes in the world and for individuals now certain of the imminence or otherwise of their mortality.

It is a wild romp as young Ea sets out with a homeless man as a scribe to find another half dozen disciples to add to her big brother's twelve, and write The Brand New Testament based on details of ordinary people's lives.

It is more whimsical and generous than blasphemous, but still, atheists will be as thrilled as believers will be enchanted, by the new apostles.

The storytelling is exquisite; Amelie-esque might be the best description of the style. Elaborately constructed frames of short bursts of gorgeous, surreal elements pepper the action to ensure that this movie is a very rare delight.

Gloriously inventive, coherent, hilarious, metaphysical, philosophical, big-hearted, and satisfying. This is 5 star entertainment for 15 and up.

Andrew Bunney, Let's Go To The Pictures, Three D Radio, Adelaide

Belgian director Jaco Van Dormael enjoys instant fame from his director debut TOTO THE HERO back in 1991, THE BRAND NEW TESTAMENT is technically his fifth feature-length film if one includes his hands-only experimental work KISS & CRY (2011), which also finds a niche in the movie, but for a more mainstream audience, it is the long-waited follow up to his cult fantasy MR. NOBODY 2009.

Judging by its name, this fantastic comedy blatantly satires the existence of God, who is played by Poelvoode in his crankiest temperament, a middle-aged man living in an apartment in Brussels, with his humble wife (Moreau), their daughter Ea (Groyne) and the absence of their son Jesus Christ (Murgia). God is testy, abusive to his wife and daughter, plays tricks to human beings through his omnipotent computer simply out of boredom. One day Ea is punished for sneaking into his office and realises what her father is doing in his office hour, she decides to play tit-for-tat, at first, she clandestinely sends the death countdown of everyone in Brussels from God's computer to everyone's cellphones, then crawls from the washing machine of their apartment to the real world for the first time and resolves to find 6 disciples (thanks to the instruction of J.C.), to write down a new testament, in order to save the world from being a plaything of the abominable God.

Can you buy this context? It is archetype of some less intelligent lifeforms try to envision a much profound scenario (which is in every respect out of their comprehension) with their own rather narrow knowledges, to entertain themselves, so its innate drawback is the bitter taste of self- consciousness with this paradoxical situations: in one hand, it is massively pleasing to dethrone our creator from his reverential pedal, and put him in our shoes and being ridiculed to the hilt (he is actually beaten by a priest at one time), but in the other hand, one tends to be disillusioned by this self-pleasing approach, even in our widest imagination, God is so earth-bound with human-friendly technology, and living conditions, too blasé to feel thrilled.

From the hardware department, this CGI-heavy picture looks pristine but artificial, but one cannot help but flashing a smile when sees Denueve's apostle Martine cuddling with a not-so-convincing gorilla, a knowing nod to Nagisa Oshima's MAX MON AMOUR (1986). And a revamped appendix where a Goddess to take over the power is self-pleasing to contradict the patriarchal system, but a female-friendly sky pattern or a walking with your pet fish under the sea, or swapping the gestation to male, only means something novel to experience, with no say to contend it is a better world. Still, it is a venturing project to tackle with those larger-than-life if not entirely zany propositions, most amusingly is the exposure of everyone's remaining time, turns out to be a goldmine to ridicule the vagaries of human behaviour.

The design of Ea's six disciples is to encourage ourselves to be more communicative, to open up instead of indulging in one's own propensities, and to pursue what our hearts really crave for (a repetitive troupe of a theme song for every soul). Newcomer Pili Groyne impresses with her cherubic and precocious attributes (but how come God has a daughter only ten years old? This is a minefield Dormael refuses to elucidate); supporting players are all bigger names in French- speaking cinema, but none of them is required to perform other than their characters' formulated quirks.

All in all, the intention behind Dormael's comedy is genial and it aims for distraction rather than religion-defiance, it is not a divine eye-opener like it advertises, but neither is a disappointing pap, it sits somewhere in between, quite comfortably.

I've just seen the film at the "avant-première" here in Paris. I really wanted to like it as I have great respect for everybody involved and I really loved the premise. First off, the actors are great, hats off to the younger cast. They held their ground until the last scene, but that loss of believability has much more to do with the script and directing as the ending felt artificial and rushed. Now, the beginning is good but what follows, not so much. The main character is underdeveloped, thus her journey at some point becomes repetitive and even though it is visually interesting, story-wise it is boring-ish. Speaking of visuals, the fact that it reminded me of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amelié actually bothered me because it made everything sound out of tune - it was both too similar to be original and too different to be a good copy. There are some great ideas and good laughs, but all in all it could have been much much better. What's worse, it deserved to be.