The Brand New Testament (2015)

Original Title

Le Tout Nouveau Testament

Genres

Comedy, Fantasy

Director

Jaco Van Dormael

Countries

Belgium, France, Luxembourg

Cast

Benoit Poelvoorde, Pili Groyne, Catherine Deneuve, François Damiens, Yolande Moreau, Laura Verlinden, Serge Larivière, David Murgia, Johan Leysen, Pascal Duquenne, Viviane De Muynck, Johan Heldenbergh, Gaspard Pauwels, Didier De Neck, Kody, Romain Gelin, Marco Lorenzini

Storyline

God (Benoit Poelvoorde) lives in human form as a cynical writer who is bored to death and the only thing that makes him feel better is creating meaningless but mean laws to destroy people's days, so his very opinionated daughter Ea (Pili Groyne) decides to descend to earth in search of her own 6 disciples to write a brand new testament and so rewrite the world.

Opinion

The Brand New Testament is a satirical dark comedy about religion. I'm an atheist. In other words, I just couldn't miss this one. Only I did. But I finally got back to it and it was awesome. It's been a while since I last saw such an humourous film that manages to be also touching but most of all thought-provoking. 

Only second to the catchy title (God exists and he lives in Bruxelles in Italian), the storyline is the reason I decided to watch it expecting a fun film. What I wasn't expecting, however, was the depth the plot would get as soon as the story progresses. Because the story really isn't about religion, it is about life. 

By simply letting people know how much to live they have left, the film explores the pursuit of happiness and what it means to break free from the everyday-life chains that oppress us so to become who we truly are. But it also shows some heart-breaking realities, like the devastation of a mother as she finds that her disabled son is going to die a month after her. That was a hard to watch, to be honest.

Don't worry though, that's one of just a few sad and dark moments in The Brand New Testament. The film has plenty of humour, mostly brought out of everyday life, and it's delivered beautifully by the cast.

Which brings me to what's easily my favourite thing about the film, the six disciples. They were not chosen because of their moral values or anything, they are just six people who have the courage to be who they truly are. They all are different from each other; they simply are common people. There's the beautiful yet lonely young woman, the boy who wants to be a girl, a killer, a lonely man who hasn't done anything but work his entire life, a sex addict and an unhappy married woman.