The Brand New Testament

The Brand New Testament
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Jaco Van Dormael
Produced by	Jaco Van Dormael Frank Van Passel
Written by	Jaco Van Dormael Thomas Gunzig
Starring	Benoît Poelvoorde Catherine Deneuve François Damiens Yolande Moreau Pili Groyne
Music by	An Pierlé
Cinematography	Christophe Beaucarne
Edited by	Hervé de Luze
Production company	Terra Incognita Films
Distributed by	Le Pacte
Release dates	17 May 2015 (2015-05-17) (Cannes) 1 September 2015 (2015-09-01) (Belgium)
Running time	113 minutes
Country	Belgium France Luxembourg
Language	French
Budget	$8.7 million[1]
Box office	$15.4 million[2]

The Brand New Testament (French: Le Tout Nouveau Testament) is a 2015 fantasy dark comedy film written, produced, and directed by Jaco Van Dormael. It is a co-production between Belgium, France, and Luxembourg. The film was screened at the Directors' Fortnight section at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.^[3] It was selected as the Belgian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards,^[4] making the December shortlist of nine films, but was not nominated.^[5][6] The Brand New Testament received ten nominations at the 6th Magritte Awards, winning four awards, including Best Film and Best Director for Van Dormael.^[7]

Plot

God lives in an apartment in Brussels, which he shares with his meek wife and his 10-year-old daughter Ea, to whom he is emotionally and physically abusive. God is a grumpy sadist who created humankind specifically to have something to torment. He manipulates reality via a personal computer, which he forbids his family from accessing. One day, Ea sneaks into his office and discovers how He has been mistreating humans. This enrages God, who whips Ea with his belt. Ea decides to rebel against her father. She steals the key to His office and accesses the pre-destined dates of death of every human in the world and releases the information to the world. Everyone receives a text message informing them when they will die. Ea then locks God's computer and escapes the apartment through a washing machine, which provides a chute to the outside world. Wandering the streets of Brussels, Ea decides to follow in Jesus' footsteps and write a Brand New Testament as her contribution to the human race. She selects six apostles to narrate their life stories. She first enlists a homeless man, Victor, to be her active, since she cannot write well.

The first apostle is a reclusive woman who lost her left arm in an accident and feels nobody will love her. The second is a man who hates his work and his life, who has decided to never move from a bench in the park now that he knows the date of his death. Ea translates to allow him to converse with a bird, which challenges his decision to remain in the park until he leaves to follow the bird to the Arctic. The third apostle is a sexually frustrated man who is awkward with women and remains lovesick for a German girl he met once as a boy. With Ea's encouragement, he becomes a voice actor for porn movies, where he encounters and establishes a relationship with his lifelong fixation. The fourth apostle is a man who is fascinated with death and killing. He purchases a rifle and shoots people knowing that all deaths are predetermined and can not be his responsibility. Ea prods him to shoot a woman, the first apostle. He hits her in her prosthetic arm. Believing this to be a divine signal, he courts the woman and they establish a relationship, and he learns to embrace life instead of death. The fifth apostle is an elderly woman trapped in a loveless marriage, especially now that her husband knows he will outlive her by many years. Ea persuades her to cheat on her husband. She has sex with a young male prostitute and then with a gorilla. The gorilla beats up her husband, to her delight. The sixth apostle is a sickly boy who, when he discovered he had only days left to live, decided to live them as a girl. Ea encourages him to live his last days as months, celebrating the usual holidays.

God is horrified when he discovers what Ea has done and that he can no longer torment humans. With His computer locked, He is powerless. He leaves the apartment for the first time using the chute in the laundry room, and suffers the mistreatment and frustrations that he created for mankind. He is assaulted by everyone He meets. He discovers to his horror that the chute to his apartment has disappeared and He is trapped in the outside world, powerless and alone. He takes shelter in a church, where the outrageous criticism of his son Jesus Christ provokes a charitable priest into beating him and eventually deporting him to Uzbekistan with a group of illegal immigrants.

Ea and her apostles go to the seaside, where hundreds of people have gathered to spend the last hours of their lives. An airplane, which happens to be carrying God under police escort, falls out of the sky, threatening everyone on the beach. At this moment, however, God's wife realizes that the number of apostles has grown to 18, her favorite number, explores her husband's workspace, restarts his computer, and begins to configure a new life for mankind. She deletes the messages that notified people of their death date. The airplane regains altitude and a new creation is born under a flower-filled sky. Victor publishes the Brand New Testament, which becomes a bestseller, lifting him out of poverty. God reaches Uzbekistan, where he works on an assembly line manufacturing washing machines, which he searches for an escape hatch that will allow him to return to his apartment.

Cast

Reception

The Brand New Testament received acclaim from film critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 80, based on 5 reviews.^[8]

Accolades

See also

• List of submissions to the 88th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
• List of Belgian submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

References

External links

• The Brand New Testament at the Internet Movie Database
• The Brand New Testament at Metacritic
• The Brand New Testament at Box Office Mojo