After the wildly ambitious sci-fi feature Mr. Nobody (which we named one of the best of the century thus far), director Jaco Van Dormael is back with The Brand New Testament, a comedy which imagines what would happen if God exists on Earth, and he’s not exactly what you might assume he would be. Having premiered at Cannes last year and earning a Golden Globe nomination as well as nearly making the final Oscar cut, it’ll finally arrive next month in the United States and now Music Box Films have released a new trailer.
We said in our positive review, “If you were to take the charm and playful visual language of Jean-Pierre Jenuet’s Amelie and pair it with a blistering satire of religious dogma, the end result would look something like The Brand New Testament, a new film from Belgian director Jaco Van Dormael. His previous feature, Mr. Nobody, starring Jared Leto as the last living human on Earth, also showcased a penchant for high concepts that veer towards the absurd rather than the literal. With his latest entry, Dormael is gunning for the big guy himself, God, portraying Him less as an all-powerful deity and more like an irritable grumpy man hellbent on making life miserable for us petty humans. In bringing life to these religious icons, he weaves a rich tapestry of conflicted characters whose unique problems become fodder for a truly holy upheaval of all that we know to be real.”
With a cast featuring Benoît Poelvoorde, Catherine Deneuve, Yolande Moreau, François Damiens and Pili Groyne, check out the new trailer and poster below.
God exists! He lives in Brussels, a petty tyrant to his wife and ten year-old daughter, Ea. Like her brother before her, Ea has had enough of her father using humanity as his playthings and hacks into His computer, leaking to the entire world their inevitable death date. After escaping, Ea must gather six more apostles in order to end His bullying and fix the mess he’s made of humanity. What remains is Jaco Van Dormael’s witty and eccentric answer to the loaded question: what would you do if you knew exactly how much time you had left to live?
The Brand New Testament opens on December 9th.