With his latest feature, Misericordia, French filmmaker Alain Guiraudie again evinces his preoccupation with de-sensationalized depictions of male sexuality and the murky morasses of carnal desire. The film, which enjoyed its world premiere at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, also finds Guiraudie operating at the intersection of openness and opacity.

Félix Kysyl’s Jérémie returns to the rural French town of Saint-Martial to mourn his former boss, yet his homecoming opens up more emotions than the grief that spurred the trip in the first place. In short order, the young man finds himself enmeshed in a web of competing attractions between the newly widowed Martine (Catherine Frot), an estranged childhood friend (Jean-Baptiste Durand), and a particularly perceptive priest (Jacques Develay).

It’s the latter figure of divine authority who proves capable of assessing the developing and dangerous situation created by Jérémie’s impulsive instincts with stark clarity. Yet even...