The Son of Joseph 2015

Known for his peculiar human dramas concerning life, love, faith and art (The Portuguese Nun, NZIFF10), Eugène Green’s latest adds a pinch of French farce to the mix. The result is a splendid deadpan comedy infused with the director’s high intellect and unmistakable European sensibility. Centred on an emo teenager obsessed with tracking down his absentee father – a pompous publisher played by Mathieu Amalric (with an inebriated Maria de Medeiros in tow) – the plot takes a devilish turn under the influence of Caravaggio’s brooding Sacrifice of Isaac before finding warmth and edification in the boy’s friendship with a benevolent stranger (Fabrizio Rongione, a favourite of the Dardenne brothers who’ve co-produced this film). Green’s inimitable style celebrates architecture and culture through anti-realist language and performance – often self-consciously – but here it’s never been lighter nor funnier, not to mention more open to wry visual humour and playful religious subtext. Indeed, this is a film that hilariously satirises the self-importance of the art world in the same breath as quietly revering its masterpieces, and is all the more soulful for it. — Tim Wong

“Shot through with an intensely pleasurable intellectual playfulness, this is the American-born French director’s most accomplished and surprising film to date, boasting his trademark thoughtfulness and precision, yet also being almost puppyishly easy to love.” — Jessica Kiang, The Playlist

“Eccentric, graceful and utterly charming, The Son of Joseph is inertia transubstantiated into art.” — Patrick Gamble, CineVue