Behind a scenario of nice exterminating superheroes, the director delivers his darkest film.
by Clarisse Fabre
smoking makes coughing, it’s always better than “smoking kills”. We are there, hanging on a cigarette taffe, inhaling our next death before our negligence is fatal to us, to all. The last feature film of the prolific Quentin Dupieux (the third since the suede, released in 2019) is undoubtedly the darkest and most melancholy of all his films, behind his scenario of benign but kind superheroes. Perhaps this explains this: mediocrity leads us straight into the wall. But Dupieux refuses to stick a message on the windshield and stroll the spectator on an uncertain path, each story devalting a little more the slope towards the trivialization of gore and dismay …
But let’s start at the beginning: we discover the five vigilantes of the “strength tobacco” passing a repugnant turtle, although the beast is not so afraid. It would almost look like a sort of panic, which would have put on a green shell as a shield. No stakes seem to animate the opening scene, except that you have to kill the monster, and the mission fulfills the teammates, who spray it with toxic products gushing from their forearms .
Sheherazade effect 2>
On this planet not clear, perhaps we must treat evil with evil: there is nicotine (Anaïs Demoustier), Benzene (Gilles Lellouche), ammonia (Oulaya Amamra), Mercury (Jean-Pascal Zadi ) and methanol (Vincent Lacoste), molded in their sky blue combinations. The delights of the Kärcher are dedicated by body and soul to their task – especially the body for girls, treated like objects by their libidinous director, a drooling rat head with the voice of Alain Chabat. The five “cleaners” soon be sent by their boss to the campaign, on the pretext of strengthening the cohesion of the group. A cabin with utopian capsule looks awaits them in a country nature.
Delivered by their work, colleagues will kill time by telling each other more terrifying stories than the other. The stories are linked to the “dupieux that I put you in the eye”, providing a shéherazade effect, never stopped to stay alive. Smoking Faith is located in the anteroom of the end of the world, where everything is allowed: the filmmaker has fun concealing his actors under wigs, to the point that some are unrecognizable – like Anaïs Demoustier in blonde, with a cut The Stone – or to have them play for a few minutes and then go away, such as Adèle Exarchopoulos, Doria Tillier, David Marsais, Grégoire Ludig.
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