The Brand New Testament

Imagine for a second that the Creator of the Universe isn’t a benevolent light or a bearded man in a flowing white robe. Instead, he’s a mean-spirited, middle-aged crank in a dingy Brussels apartment who spends his days in a stained bathrobe, hunched over an ancient computer, inventing "Universal Laws of Annoyance." You know the ones: the other line always moves faster, or the toast always falls jam-side down. This is the premise of Jaco Van Dormael’s The Brand New Testament, a film that manages to be both profoundly blasphemous and oddly life-affirming.

I watched this on a rainy Tuesday while drinking a Belgian Ale that was far too strong for a weekday, and it made the sequence featuring a dancing, detached hand feel like a fever dream I didn’t want to wake up from. It’s a movie that feels like it shouldn't exist in our current landscape of focus-grouped comedies and safe franchise bets. It’s weird, it’s European, and it’s arguably the most creative thing to come out of 2015.

Divine Bureaucracy and Digital Hacking

The heart of the story isn't actually God—played with delightful, snivelling malice by Benoît Poelvoorde (who you might recognize from the cult classic Man Bites Dog)—but his ten-year-old daughter, Ea (Pili Groyne). Ea is tired of her father’s domestic abuse and his penchant for creating wars and famines just because he’s bored. In a stroke of pre-teen rebellion that feels incredibly "now," she hacks into his mainframe and leaks the one thing humanity was never supposed to know: everyone’s exact date of death.

This "Death Leak" is where the film's comedy transitions from slapstick to something more existential. Once everyone knows they have fifty years—or fifty minutes—left to live, the social order collapses in the funniest way possible. Why go to work? Why listen to a God who is clearly a hack? Ea escapes through a portal in the back of a washing machine to find her own six apostles and write a "Brand New Testament."

The film captures a very specific contemporary anxiety. Released in an era where we are constantly bombarded by notifications and data leaks, the idea of our final expiration date arriving as a text message feels uncomfortably plausible. Jaco Van Dormael and co-writer Thomas Gunzig use this high-concept hook to explore what it actually means to live when the "mystery" is stripped away.

Six Apostles and a Gorilla

The structure of the film follows Ea as she recruits her apostles, a group of societal misfits who represent the beautiful, broken parts of humanity. We get François Damiens as a man obsessed with death, Serge Larivière as an assassin who rediscovers love, and, most famously, Catherine Deneuve as Martine. Deneuve’s segment is the film’s "hot take" realized: she finds herself in a loveless marriage and ends up in a romantic relationship with a circus gorilla.

It sounds like a joke that shouldn't land, but Deneuve plays it with such regal sincerity that it becomes a touching commentary on loneliness. The film's humor is a risky tightrope walk. It bounces from dark, cynical satire to whimsical, Amélie-style visual gags without breaking its neck. Poelvoorde’s God, meanwhile, eventually leaves his apartment to find Ea, only to discover that the world he treated like a cruel ant farm has no respect for a man who looks like a homeless drunk and can’t even turn water into wine without a specific permit. God is a pathetic middle-manager who enjoys watching us suffer, and seeing him get kicked around by the very reality he created is immensely satisfying.

The Visual Language of a Forgotten Gem

Visually, The Brand New Testament is a feast. Christophe Beaucarne’s cinematography treats Brussels like a surrealist painting—all muted tones punctuated by bursts of impossible color. There’s a scene involving a "music of the soul" where each person has a literal internal soundtrack (Martine’s is a circus march), and the way Van Dormael integrates these auditory cues with the visuals is masterful.

So, why haven't you heard of it? Despite being a hit in Europe and Belgium's entry for the Oscars, it suffered from the classic "foreign film" distribution trap in the States. It’s a comedy that requires subtitles, and for some reason, the American market remains allergic to the idea that a movie can be both hilarious and French-speaking. It’s a shame because the film is a visual playground that puts most $200 million blockbusters to shame. It doesn't rely on CGI spectacles; it relies on clever staging and the kind of "what-if" imagination that feels increasingly rare in the streaming era.

If you’re tired of the same three jokes being recycled in every summer comedy, seek this one out. It’s a film that asks big questions about fate and divinity while still finding time for a gag about a guy trying to survive a plane crash because his "clock" says he has thirty years left. It’s a bold, blasphemous, and beautiful reminder that if life is a joke, we might as well be the ones laughing. Just keep an eye on your toast.