Tag: Quentin Dupieux

Daaaaaali!

Posted on by victorfraga

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There are movies about art and artists. There are documentaries. And then there is Daaaaaali!!!! Whatever expectations one has of a Quentin Dupieux movie (2019’s Deerskin, 2022’s Smoking Causes Coughing, or 2023’s Yannick), this fulfils them. France’s comic auteur makes movies unlike anyone else, completely bonkers and very funny.

It doesn’t start off with celebrated surrealist artist Salvador Dali but with Judith (Anaïs Demoustier from Smoking Causes Coughing and Francois Ozon’s The New Girlfriend, 2014), 33, a former pharmacist who decided one day to become a journalist. In reality, it doesn’t start off with Judith but with a scenario that stages a Dali painting (Necrophilic Fountain Flowing from a Grand Piano, 1932). A piano in barren Spanish countryside with a tree-shaped, potted plant sitting on top and a continuous arc of water flowing from a hole in the side of the piano.

Judith is the first character we meet in the film. Now, here she is admitting all this to camera and interrupted by a PR turning up to inform her Dali is on the way to the hotel room for the interview. The PR tries to stop the interview going wrong by ensuring there is a plentiful supply of sparkling mineral water in the room (the artist guzzles it by the gallon), but it’s a disaster anyway because the journalist has no camera present. Dali will not do an interview without a movie camera, so he walks out.

Movie over.

Which, in a way, is the plot of the film. Daaaaaali! has more endings than any other film I can think of. Judith attempts to restart her interview, now a movie about Dali with cameras and crew, thanks to her editor / producer (Romain Duris from The New Girlfriend) several times. Dali, meanwhile, is invited for supper at his gardener Georges’ house where a priest recounts a dream up to the point where, “and then I woke up”. Perhaps we’re still in your dream, quips Dali at one point in the post-dream conversation, and sure enough, some time later, the priest again says, “and then I woke up”. It’s easy to lose count of the number of times this happened, easy to do when you get caught up in the other subplot, the one about Judith trying to restart her interview (movie) with Dali.

There are many movies like this, and usually it’s an irritating cliché indicative of lazy screenwriting (or possibly a writers’ strike). Not so here. It’s impossible to say whether Dupieux holds any regard for Dali as an artist, because the film is far more interested in Dali the showman, the actor, the persona, the diva, the narcissist, a character not unlike the self-obsessed jacket-seeker of Deerskin. Perhaps inevitably, when it comes to the end of the film, Dupieux has a lot of fun with that too, throwing a whole series of different endings (with a ‘Fin’ title card) at the audience before the film’s ending proper.

Rather than have one actor play the character, Dupieux has five (Gilles Lellouche, from Smoking Causes Coughing; Édouard Baer; Jonathan Cohen; Pio Marmaï from Yannick; and Didier Flamand who worked with Dali’s sometime filmmaking colleague Luis Buñuel on The Phantom Of Liberty, 1974). The whole endeavour is deeply surreal. Dupieux is fascinated by Surrealism, although in his case it’s not the type of aesthetic that critics describe as comic when it’s not actually very funny. Dupieux’s films are very funny indeed, and this one is no exception. As a bonus, its hilarity is bolstered no end by a repetitive, silly yet highly effective, acoustic guitar score by Thomas Bangalter, formerly of Daft Punk. The score is very close to being irritating, yet somehow achieves a near-impossible balancing act to take the humour to a whole other level.

A gem. It absolutely delivers everything you hope it would.

Daaaaaali! played out of competition at the Critics’ Picks Section of the 27th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (out of competition).

Yannick

Posted on by victorfraga

Somewhere in Paris, three actors deliver a comedy entitled Cuckold, about a woman leaving her husband for an older uglier man. There are no more than 20 theatre-lovers in the audience, who are thoroughly enjoying the performance. Suddenly, Yannick (Raphaël Quenard) stands up and interrupts the show in order to express his frustration. He is angered that he travelled for 60 minutes from the outskirts of the French capital in order to watch a play that makes him feel even more miserable than he normally does. The three actors Paul (Pio Marmaï), Sophie (Blanche Gardin) and William (Sébastien Chassagne) attempt to reason him to no avail. “This isn’t just about money”, an adamant Yannick argues. “I had to take a whole day off work and now I feel worse than ever”. He explains that he’s car park watchman, and that in three years a vehicle has never been robbed or even damage. It is therefore only reasonable that the three thespians should carry out their job just as duly.

What’s spectacular about Yannick’s tirade is that it neatly encapsulates the sensations that all of us have experienced when we sacrificed time and money in order to watch a play or a film that turned out to be painful. Our protagonist then resorts to some extreme measures, making us all regret we did not take matters into our own hands with a similar approach. Bad spectacles should never be tolerated. Overt criticism and sheer violence are the most appropriate response, we soon find out. Why should anyone be held hostage and under torture, without even being allowed to pee, for nearly two hours inside a (movie) theatre? Yannick liberates us from the shackles of etiquette and civility that inconveniently bind us to our theatre seats.

Gradually, the conflict escalates. The audiences become thoroughly entertained by the impromptu, real-life intermezzo. Allegiances suddenly change. Yannick is hellbent on proving that he is not as dislikable as he may seem. He eventually lets how guard down, giving the “hostages” the opportunity to react. Could Paul, Sophie and William turn the table, or has Yannick unearthed some inopportune truths, and taken the actors our of their comfort zone to very revealing results? The meta-stage becomes a place for confession and redemption.

Quentin Dupieux has penned and directed a pithy, robust and thoroughly entertaining 65-minute comedy that raises some very serious questions about the relationship between the artist and the audiences, and tests their connection to the extreme. An astute script, a firm directorial hand and a few good performances are the main ingredients for success. Yannick is a truly cathartic and refreshing film experience. Just make sure you come armed. And that your weapon is fully loaded!

Yannick premiered in the Official Competition of the 76th Locarno Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. Also showing at the Turin Film Festival. In cinemas on Friday, April 5th (2024).

Smoking Causes Coughing (Fumer Fait Tousser)

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After the whimper of the recent Guardians of The Galaxy films, director Quentin Dupieux introduces us to Tobacco Force, a merry band of rogues who represent the individual components of nicotine. Dupieux manages the Terry Gilliam trick of seeming far-reaching and frenzied at the same time, but laces the work with a bleakness that’s undeniably French in its resolve. In this batty world, the Tobacco Force are beloved celebrities, regularly spending time with the fans who populate their training ground for a cheeky selfie or two.

Deliciously silly, and directed with tremendous affection for the comics of the 1970s, Dupieux’s film follows a more anthological terrain compared to some of the more streamlined projects in his oeuvre, and although this isn’t as intelligent a feature as his 2019 effort Deerskin, it’s nonetheless a dizzying, frequently dazzling, look at cigarette consumption in the modern world. Much of it bears a darkly comic tone: A young man named Michael (Anthony Sonigo) seems nonplussed by the fact that his feet are stuck in an industrial machine, even though every turn of the nob leads him closer and closer to death.

“How will I tell your mother that you are crippled?” his aunt bellows, although the characters embrace the hopelessness with a chuckle and a grin. The remaining stories hold a similarly odd tone, capturing a curiosity (occasional disgust) at the world at large. The Tobacco Force gang together to exhibit a camaraderie that’s based on stupidity and sincerity, although they too fall to the trappings of fame, engaged in their endeavours to better themselves. Mercifully, the film follows a slim 80 minutes (anyone aching for something sepulchral and herculean should sit this out for a Martin Scorsese epic), and the jokes, while occasionally hamfisted, have a direction in mind.

Like many comedies, the ambition isn’t to provide answers,but context. It’s a film of context, cohesion, colour. Some would even call it a tragicomedy of sorts, and although the film is fairly jolly, it’s unlikely that anyone would feel like imbibing anything slighter than whiskey at the close. For all its flaws, the movie is incredibly human, and there’s no denying the effort that pieced the work from the ground up. What’s fleeting might be fun, but it is also lethal, and what is lethal, is also human. But humans have a penchant for survival (the recent pandemic has only illustrated that further), and although we may be stupid, we definitely have style.

Smoking Causes Coughing in is cinemas Friday, July 7th. On Mubi in August.

Deerskin (Le Daim)

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This French black comedy was directed by Quentin Dupieux, previously made the killer tire film Rubber (201). It co-stars Jean Dujardin, best known for his lead role in The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius, 2011), and Adèle Haenel (from Celine Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, 2019).

Dujardin plays George, a middle-aged guy who arrives at this hotel in a mountain valley. He has recently been divorced and is having a kind of mid-life crisis. He becomes very obsessed with a deerskin jacket that he has bought for €7500 along with a digital camcorder, in what turns out to be not a very good deal. He starts making a film with the camcorder, then meets a local bartender, Denise, played by Haenel. From there, Deerskin becomes a very odd yet enjoyable movie about an impromptu serial killer. Denise becomes his producer, and they form an odd alliance.

It’s a very funny film, with a bit of Man Bites Dog (Benoît Poelvoorde, Rémy Belvaux and André Bonzel, 2012), although it’s not a found-footage mockumentary. It’s a satire of filmmaking and mid-life crises, with an anarchic sense of humour. When Deerskin goes off the walls, it happens in a very amusing fashion, especially with one murder montage. It’s also a touching film about loneliness. It is brilliantly paced, with a pair of good performances. It has a fun energy, with absurdist humour and amusing use of jolly tunes to soundtrack the mayhem that occurs later on.

Possibly the jacket is possessing Georges – but that supernatural twist is definitely open for interpretation. It presents a good character study of a man who becomes some sort of likeable monster but you almost. Dujardin is helped by very charming smile. His character here is deeply narcissistic and resorts to some unsavoury things, but his preformance makes it more palatable. It is a daring role for Dujardin to take on after The Artist, and it showcases his broad acting spectrum.

Deerskin was one of the big surprises of last year when originally released on HBO Max in the US. Sadly it fell under the radar. Now it is getting a small art-house release in the UK, and it’s definitely one of the better movies of the last couple of years: outrageous, fun, and not to be missed. It also shows how nice it would be if more films came in at 77 minutes.

Deerskin is in selected cinemas on Friday, July 16th. On VoD on Monday, September 27th.