The Brand New Testament

This is a fantasy, black comedy. Jesus Christ's kid sister Ea is living with their dad, God, and their mum, Goddess, in a city apartment in Brussels in the present day. She is sick of God's cruel and violent ways and at age 10, puts an end to it by freezing his computer and fleeing the apartment into the city.

Her last act before sabotaging her evil Dad is to text everyone with their date of death as her father, God, has fated it. This causes first a media storm, then great changes in the world and for individuals now certain of the imminence or otherwise of their mortality.

It is a wild romp as young Ea sets out with a homeless man as a scribe to find another half dozen disciples to add to her big brother's twelve, and write The Brand New Testament based on details of ordinary people's lives.

It is more whimsical and generous than blasphemous, but still, atheists will be as thrilled as believers will be enchanted, by the new apostles.

The storytelling is exquisite; Amelie-esque might be the best description of the style. Elaborately constructed frames of short bursts of gorgeous, surreal elements pepper the action to ensure that this movie is a very rare delight.

Gloriously inventive, coherent, hilarious, metaphysical, philosophical, big-hearted, and satisfying. This is 5 star entertainment for 15 and up.

Andrew Bunney, Let's Go To The Pictures, Three D Radio, Adelaide

This takes many things that people question about reality and turn them into comedy (bread falling always on the side that has something on it instead of the other side amongst other things). The beginning really has some drive to it and it is overall a fun movie to watch. It does take its time though, especially when it comes to "choosing" people and giving us their back-story.

The acting is good, though some of the themes will rather annoy than offend people. Whether they are atheist or religious won't matter, if you don't think it's funny. And while it's provocative, it's also sort of "respectful" in a way. Still the basic idea alone almost warrants the running time and the viewing itself.

God exists. He lives in Brussels with his wife and daughter. God is a self-centered sadistic bully who, out of sheer boredom, created people to torture them. Most of his time he spends creating (Murphy's) laws by which the world will function, with the sole purpose to annoy, frustrate and harass humanity as much as possible, and the rest of the time he causes wars, accidents, and natural disasters. When his son tried to stop this terror and change the world for the better he ended up crucified. And now his ten-year-old daughter has had enough and she takes matters into her own hands. She runs away, appoints six apostles and writes "The Brand New Testament."

Ea: How do you choose apostles? Jesus: Pretend like you know, no one will question you.

This surreal and absurdist black-humorous drama deals with eternal questions of the meaning of life, death, and love. Some accuse it of trying to impress by the quasi-philosophical depth, but I disagree with that. I would not say that this film fakes anything in any way. I have the impression that Jaco Van Dormael has come up with a good idea and simply let it grow and take its course, without restrictions and censorship.

The cast is excellent, and particularly prominent are Benoit Poelvoorde, in the role of crazed God, and young and cute Pili Groyne, who carries almost the entire movie, uniting the child's innocence and naivety with the wisdom and determination of the new messiah. Directing, cinematography and music are simply magical, and although the film has some technical shortcomings, it didn't bother me at all. I would say that some scenes pay homage to other films. I think I recognized "The Eighth Day", which also was written and directed by Jaco Van Dormael, then Kubrick's "The Shining" and Darabont's "The Shawshank Redemption", as well as several others for which I am not so sure.

This is the official Belgian submission for the 2016 Academy Awards. Competition must have been really strong when it did not pass. If this and my recommendation are not enough for you to watch it, the fact that it was created by the same man who was responsible for "The Eighth Day" and "Mr. Nobody" should prevail.

8,5/10

Ladies, this one is for you. Some of you may have suspected it all along, but this film confirms God is a chauvinist pig (well, the clues were all there, come to think of it). Luckily - but unbeknownst to most - God also has a daughter, and she's had enough of her mean-spirited, bad-tempered Father and is about to teach Him a lesson.

With the help of her brother (yes, THAT brother) and a somewhat unorthodox band of newly appointed disciples, she's determined to make her own mark on the universe. Needless to say, God's having none of it and tries to do everything in His - considerable - power to stop His rebellious daughter from undoing everything He's worked so hard for.

This hilarious satire is a firework of inspired ideas and just a blast from start to finish. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves intelligent, absurdist comedy in the vein of 'Life of Brian' or 'South Park' and doesn't get easily offended. 8 stars out of 10.

In case you're interested in more underrated masterpieces, here's a list with some of my favorites:

imdb.com/list/ls070242495

I've just seen the film at the "avant-première" here in Paris. I really wanted to like it as I have great respect for everybody involved and I really loved the premise. First off, the actors are great, hats off to the younger cast. They held their ground until the last scene, but that loss of believability has much more to do with the script and directing as the ending felt artificial and rushed. Now, the beginning is good but what follows, not so much. The main character is underdeveloped, thus her journey at some point becomes repetitive and even though it is visually interesting, story-wise it is boring-ish. Speaking of visuals, the fact that it reminded me of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amelié actually bothered me because it made everything sound out of tune - it was both too similar to be original and too different to be a good copy. There are some great ideas and good laughs, but all in all it could have been much much better. What's worse, it deserved to be.