Although it is true that Le fils de Joseph presents specific features of comedy - Vincent's entanglement sneaking into his father's office, his friend's curious business, the jokes with Joseph ...-, we should not take it just as that : Green's cinema is for thinking. Among other things, because that path the only thing that leads us is to wait for two hours for the joke that never comes and to endure the disturbing gaze of some Sims who do nothing to make us like them.

In fact, a first one already justifies the initial statism of the characters who, like Vincent, find themselves empty in the absence of a father figure. In addition, the beautiful final scene makes explicit the change of the character, who cannot help but smile when he sees Joseph hug his mother, Marie. In Les fils de Joseph, Eugéne Green uses a typical plot to tell us about the mystery of things and their meaning behind the perceptible.

In this sense, Green also divides the story into five Christian-themed acts - three stories from the Old Testament and two from the Gospels. The first of them, The Sacrifice of Abraham, shows the clash between Marie -María, mother of Jesus Christ- and son, fruit of the absence of the father; in the second, El Calf de Oro, we see the egotistical and libertine character of Oscar Pormenor; in The Sacrifice of Isaac, the myth is reversed: Vincent tries to sacrifice his father; in El Carpintero, Vincent and Joseph -José, Sr.- establish father-child relationships; and in The Flight into Egypt, mother and son follow Joseph to Normandy. As we can see, Green extends the meaning to what we perceive at first.

This also carries over to the staging feature. Green, of dramaturgical origin, transfers his knowledge of the Baroque theater - see the use of candles - to the aesthetic composition of his films. In fact, the frontality of the shots and the rigidity of the actors generate a cold sensation on the surface of the shot, which has no other objective than to give special resonance to the words and the gazes of the characters. These meaningful words are called Parole, a term Green often refers to as the union of the mysterious, the sacred, and the material and real. The church singing scene is also an example. Perhaps neither of them understands Latin or knows the song - a mother's lament over the death of her child - but both are unintentionally influenced by the revealing effect of the music itself.

Therefore, it would be a sin to pigeonhole this movie simply as a Coming of age or one more "family reconciliation drama". Les fils de Joseph is a classic story embedded in a contemporary world that vindicates the importance of what words and images do not say: transcendence and the hidden. Through the game of intuition and revelation, Green conquers us with a way of understanding cinema, art and life. A revealing movie.

The story of the illegitimate child in search of his father has been told and told and told.It has spawned more melodramas than you'll ever see.

Eugene Green has completely renewed this hackneyed subject;his movie looks like no other one,and on the current feel-good French scene ,it's like a bolt from the blue.The viewer may feel bewildered,lost ,searching something vaguely similar to cling to.

Robert Bresson is the first name that comes to mind :the way the actors deliver their lines ,in a neuter almost robotic voice,refusing any dramatization,may put off some people.But if you carry it on,the movie grows on you and culminates in one of the most moving finale I know:Victor Ezenfis 's last shot reflects happiness,nay bliss.

The movie is divided in five chapters ,three inspired by the Old Testament , the others by the Gospels.It's not unwarranted .

Genesis and Exodus are cruel books: Oscar,the wealthy editor , is some kind of Abraham who did not hear God's voice (see Joseph's explanation);in the second part ,he is an equivalent of King Herod. Biblicals references abound.Oscar's and Joseph's father treated his children like Isaac in Genesis ,who favored Jacob and denied Esau's birthright .

The New Testament,on the other hand , is a providential merciful holy scripture ;in Vincent's bedroom,there's Caravaggio's painting which represents Abraham 's sacrifice.When he meets Joseph (the carpenter),both go to a museum and stop in front of Georges De La Tour's painting : a stark contrast to the violence (look at the terrified child's face) of the Italian painting.Although there's a cross on it, Jesus's and Joseph's faces reflect perfect heavenly bliss.

The "golden calf" represents the material world , that of Oscar and his "Bourgeois Bohèmes" ,who drink champagne ,exchanging would be "intellectual" lines -the "critic" who's just talked to late writer Nathalie Sarraute ,it takes the biscuit- , a self-centered selfish milieu.Oscar 's cynicism knows no bounds : not only he cheats on his wife almost in front of her ,but he does not know how many children he fathered!

Natacha Régnier's Mary is the only light in the first chapter : she wants to bring relief ,so she became a nurse .Vincent resents the fact that she has never revealed his father's name : she knows it's beyond her ,that old God of the Old Testament.It takes Joseph to build a true family ,and even if they escape from the powers- that-be on a donkey ,they are stronger than Herod and his cops/soldiers .

Eugene Green achieves the incredible feat of getting a little humor in a rather dry work: both scenes of the guy who sells sperm on internet and needs an associate are a good comic relief in that context ;so are the blue jokes Vincent cracks with his adoptive father.Sometimes,lines which are not funny become so ,by the way they are delivered :"can't you see I'm working?".

That there's only one (non French) comment on such a remarkable movie is amazing .This movie is so rich it deserves hundreds of reviews.Is it a Christian movie,by the way?