THE BRAND NEW TESTAMENT
Belgium, 2016, 118 minutes, Colour.
Pili Groyne, Benoit Poelvoorde, Catherine Deneuve, François Damiens, Yolande Moreau, Laura Verlinden, Serge Lariviere, Didier de Neck, Marco Lorenzini.
Directed by Jaco van Dormael.
Jaco van Dormael is a Belgian director with a wry sense of humour. His films include Eighth Day, Toto los Heros and the very eccentric Mr Nobody. The Brand New Testament is eccentric indeed. It plays with biblical ideas and images, has its own Genesis and Exodus as well is its own God, in the form of comedian Benoit Poelvoorde, a mean-minded creator living in a house in Brussels with his housekeeper Goddess wife and his precocious daughter. There are references to Jesus himself, images of Jesus on the cross, of a statue who dialogues with his sister, urging her to greater things.
God has spent a lot of time making mischief for humans. His wife, Yolande Moreau, is busy tidying up and causes a problem when she disconnects God’s computer in order to plug in her cleaner – and he had sent out messages to all people about the date they were to die. This causes some kind of panic as well as people planning the rest of their lives, for a short time or a long time.
God’s daughter, Ea, escapes through a laundry vent, befriends a homeless man who becomes her scribe for a new Testament, and spends her time finding six apostles – quite a range of people in ordinary and extraordinary situations (including Catherine deneuve falling in love with a gorilla). By the end of this experience, Ea has new sayings for a new gospel. God has followed her down to earth but is arrested because he has no papers and is to be transported to prison in Uzbekistan. God’s wife then reconnects the computer, starts it again and people’s time limits for life on earth are no longer part of their information…
1. The title, the tone, expectations? Religious antireligious? Reverent and irreverent? Whimsical?
2. The audience and ideas of God, the Biblical background and traditions, faith and stances for God, stances anti-God? Images of God as Creator, controller? The sketches of Adam and Eve and their multiplying generations? The joke of Adam with the black bar across his genitals and trying to get rid of it? The images of a vengeful and tormenting God? Issues of human decision and free will?
3. God in the 21st century, living in Brussels, in the apartment? His 21st-century Genesis? Modern, his goddess wife, his clothes and appearance, the comic touches, the wife and her cleaning? The da Vinci picture? God and his computers? His composing all the petty and malicious laws for people to be hurt? Programs and control? The memories of Jesus, his critique of Jesus? His being on hard on his daughter?
4. Ea, the daughter, her age, home life, love for her mother, her mother’s love of baseball and wanting eighteen disciples like a team? Her opinions and wanting to change the world? Her talking to the statue of Jesus, his coming alive, his memories, experiences, a device? The later joke about JC and van Damme? Ea and her Exodus, wanting to escape, the advice to go through the washing machine? Her tampering with the computer, sending out all the text messages about how long everybody had to live?
5. Her getting out, the real world, eating a hamburger at the dump, the people she met, the puzzles, meeting Victor, the discussions, becoming friends? Aims, to find the six apostles? A brand new Testament and Victor writing it down?
6. People receiving the text messages, the information about their deaths, the range of individuals, the different times, the reactions, the sudden deaths, the carefree attitude, people pursuing hobbies, ease? The role of the media? The comedy with Kevin - he knew that he couldn’t die and his various attempts and his being saved?
7. Ea and Victor, his being homeless but bonding with Ea, the quest of finding the apostles? The six different types, their circumstances, men and women, some hard lives, others and their eccentricities? And Ea listening to the music inside each of them?
8. The first disciple: Aurelie, young woman, ill, her face, loneliness, her loss of her arm?
9. The second apostle: Jean-Claude?, his dreams, remaining on the park bench, birds, his wonder at the formations, arriving the Arctic?
10. The third decide apostle: the sex addict? Lonely, his memories of the German girl, voicing porn movies, meeting the right woman?
11. The fourth apostle: the assassin, flashbacks to his childhood, deadly, aims, his hobbies, his wife and child, seeing the girl in the elevator, following her, the declaration of love, the guns, shooting Aurelie and hitting her artificial arm? with her, the change of heart?
12. The fifth apostle, Catherine Deneuve, life, luxury, glamour, shopping, her home, her unfaithful husband? The affair with the young prostitute? Ea taking her to the circus, the encounter with the gorilla, the gorilla going home, the relationship? A variation on Beauty and the Beast?
13. The six apostle: the young boy, terminally ill, deciding what he wanted, the reaction of his parents, wanting to be a girl, wearing the dress, going to school? The fish – and returning it to the sea?
14. God, coming out through the washing machine, the suds, eating the hamburger, attacked as a vagrant, his malevolent responses, wandering, his arrest, not having any documents, being transported to Uzbekistan, the plane and its being about to crash? His working in the factory in Usbekistan and making washing machines (and a possible escape)?
15. The wife, cleaning the office, using the socket for the vacuum cleaner, turning the computer on, the request to reboot, her accepting – and people getting the texts that their deaths were not planned? The wife and her looking at the da Vinci picture with the increasing number of apostles? Her picking the floral colour of the sky?
16. Everyone on the beach, the threat of the plane crash?
17. The change, everybody becoming normal, happy? Ea and Victor and the writing down of the new precepts? The gathering with all the apostles and their new lives?
18. The epilogue, the tone – and Kevin challenging death again – and failing?
