The Life of Jesus

A small town in northern France. Freddy, unemployed and epileptic, spends his days riding motorbikes with his friends, keeping birds and doing nothing. When a young man of Arab descent shows interest in his girlfriend Marie, what has been accumulating in the emptiness turns into racist violence. Bruno Dumont's first film. It was shot in Bailleul, the town where he was born, with a cast of non-professionals; David Douche, who plays Freddy, never made another film. The religious reference in the title is not empty, but it is not direct either: the film does not depict Jesus, it depicts a life that resembles nothing of the sort, on purpose. Everything that would become Dumont's style is already here: long silences, flat framing, no music, a camera held too close to the body. It took a special mention for the Camera d'Or at Cannes, and won the Prix Jean Vigo, the BFI Sutherland Trophy and European Discovery of the Year at the European Film Awards. Who it is for: anyone curious about hard French realism and first-film energy. Who it is not for: viewers troubled by sex and violence shown coldly.