{"id":84064,"date":"2016-03-25T01:00:35","date_gmt":"2016-03-25T01:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=84064"},"modified":"2016-01-26T13:47:32","modified_gmt":"2016-01-26T13:47:32","slug":"brand-new-testament-film-review-a-blasphemous-blast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/reviews\/brand-new-testament-film-review-a-blasphemous-blast\/","title":{"rendered":"Brand New Testament film review: a blasphemous blast"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">A grand, gleefully silly and surprisingly tender satirical fantasy adventure that posits the question, \u2018what if women ruled the world?\u2019 <em><strong>The Brand New Testament<\/strong> <\/em>is the fantastic tale of a ten-year-old girl named Ea (Pili Groyne), who when sick of her father (aka God)\u2019s ways, decides to reboot the world by sending everyone the date of their death, escaping through the washing machine at her apartment and going on a quest through Brussels to find six new apostles.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Belgian filmmaker Jaco Van Dormael playfully brings to life Marilyn Monroe\u2019s famous words that \u201cimperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it\u2019s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring\u201d with a delightful concept that is executed with style, humour and emotional intelligence. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">He draws together an exquisite cast, including Catherine Deneuve (<em><strong>Persepolis<\/strong><\/em>) as a heartbroken wife who takes a gorilla for a lover, and Marco Lorenzini (<em><strong>Brotherhood Of Tears<\/strong><\/em>) as a dyslexic homeless man tasked with writing the New Testament. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">There\u2019s both deep poignancy and knowingness in this telling of a new world order that can perhaps be best described as <em><strong>Stranger Than Fiction<\/strong><\/em> meets <em><strong>Dogma<\/strong><\/em> via Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Surreal images such as an ostrich wandering through a supermarket or a detached hand doing ballet across the screen while chaos ensues abound. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">But mostly this is a story about adults full of sadness who have lost their sense of wonderment. A feeling of hope also comes from the introduction of a young boy who wants to live as a girl. Van Dormael gives the viewer a great villain who gets his comeuppance by putting an entitled, horrid rule-maker (God, played in a superbly haughty fashion by Benoit Poelvoorde) in his place by making him experience life from the other side. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Told from a bright-eyed childlike perspective through Ea\u2019s narration, this story of human connection and empathy takes on an animated and lively form that entertains and enlightens in equal measure. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>God goes missing in the great comedy The Brand New Testament<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":84066,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[2615,8],"tags":[4966],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Brand-New-Testament.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84064"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}