Synopsis
The Life of Jesus (La Vie de Jésus, 1997) is Bruno Dumont's debut drama, available to watch online on iFILM. It unfolds in a dead-end town in northern France, where twenty-year-old Freddy has almost nothing to do. No work, a scooter, and the local amateur brass band rehearsing somewhere down the street.
Freddy (David Douche) is with Marie, yet he has little to give her — no plans, no warmth, barely any words. His days drain away on aimless rides through the flat countryside with a pack of bored friends and the small cruelties they aim at strangers. When Kader, a young Arab man, starts showing interest in Marie, that boredom curdles into jealousy, and in this corner of France jealousy finds its way to violence fast.
Dumont shot it in his own hometown of Bailleul with non-professional actors and no musical cushion — long takes, silence, a low grey horizon. The title is a feint: there's nothing devotional here, only bodies, tedium and brutality that the director somehow makes feel physical. The film earned Dumont the Prix Jean Vigo and marked him as one of the notable French voices of the decade. Skip it if you want plot momentum; stay for something slow and deeply uneasy. Stream The Life of Jesus (1997) online on iFILM.
Starring
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