Bruno Dumont

La vie de Jésus

La vie de Jésus

With his stunning debut feature, the risk-taking auteur Bruno Dumont immediately established his reputation as an uncompromising iconoclast on the cutting edge of French cinema. Blending unflinching realism with moments of startling, light-filled beauty, La vie de Jésus finds unexpected philosophical richness in the quotidian, small-town existence of Freddy (nonprofessional David Douche in a revelatory, one-off performance), an aimless young man with epilepsy who, in his childlike simplicity, embodies both great tenderness and terrifying brutality. Leaving the film’s cryptic title tantalizingly open to interpretation, Dumont dares viewers to see the divine in a seemingly dead-end world.

Film Info

  • France
  • 1997
  • 96 minutes
  • Color
  • 2.35:1
  • French
  • Spine #980

Director-Approved Special Edition Features

  • New 4K digital restoration, approved by director Bruno Dumont, with uncompressed stereo soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • New interview with Dumont
  • Conversation between Dumont and critic Philippe Rouyer from 2014
  • Excerpts from two 1997 episodes of the French television program Le cercle de minuit
  • Trailer
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Nicholas Elliott

New cover by Vivienne Flesher

Purchase Options

Director-Approved Special Edition Features

  • New 4K digital restoration, approved by director Bruno Dumont, with uncompressed stereo soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • New interview with Dumont
  • Conversation between Dumont and critic Philippe Rouyer from 2014
  • Excerpts from two 1997 episodes of the French television program Le cercle de minuit
  • Trailer
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Nicholas Elliott

New cover by Vivienne Flesher

La vie de Jésus
Cast
David Douche
Freddy
Marjorie Cottreel
Marie
Geneviève Cottreel
Yvette
Kader Chaatouf
Kader
Sébastien Delbaere
Gégé
Sébastien Bailleul
Quinquin
Samuel Boidin
Michou
Steve Smagghe
Robert
Credits
Director
Bruno Dumont
Written by
Bruno Dumont
Executive producer
Jean Bréhat
Executive producer
Rachid Bouchareb
Produced by
Muriel Merlin
Photographed by
Philippe Van Leeuw
Sound by
Éric Rophé
Sound by
Matthieu Imbert
Sound by
Olivier De Nesle
Art direction by
Frédérique Suchet
Music by
Richard Cuvillier
Makeup by
Férouz Zaafour
Editing by
Guy Lecorne
Editing by
Yves Deschamps
Sound editing by
Pierre Choukroun
Sound mix by
Thierry Sabatier

Current

How Bruno Dumont’s Cinema Gives Flesh to Philosophy
How Bruno Dumont’s Cinema Gives Flesh to Philosophy

The French iconoclast explains how his background in industrial filmmaking helped him bring life to abstract ideas about the human condition.

La vie de Jésus: The Sky Above
La vie de Jésus: The Sky Above

Bruno Dumont’s remarkable first feature examines the intermingling of the sacred and the profane in the French provinces.

By Nicholas Elliott

Carlos Reygadas’s Top 10
Carlos Reygadas’s Top 10

The director of Japón talks about his love for “filmmakers who struggle,” what he values in comedy, and movies that show us what it’s like to live with intensity.

Designing Dumont
Designing Dumont

Combining elements of her own paintings with an improvisatory Photoshop process, artist Vivienne Flesher captured the grim beauty of Bruno Dumont’s cinema for our releases of La vie de Jésus and L’humanité.