SLACK BAY (Ma Loute) C+
France Germany (122 mi)
2016 ‘Scope d: Bruno
Dumont
This is a film that will scramble your brains, leaving
nothing but mush afterwards, a surreal remix of L'il
Quinquin (P'tit Quinquin) – Made for TV (2015), where again people
mysteriously disappear in a small seaside village on the coast of Northern
France, while the befuddled and constantly inept police inspectors on the scene
make no progress whatsoever in solving the crimes, yet this version is more
over-the-top, as everything’s done to such horrific excess that bad taste is essentially
the theme of the film. Ironic, then,
that what is arguably the worst film in the Dumont repertoire will have the
most commercial success, as theaters, for no apparent reason, are willing to
book this film as an outlandish, cutting edge comedy, and people are flocking
to the theaters in droves. Is there no
accounting for bad taste? Perhaps this,
in itself, is a comment on the current state of arthouse cinema, where Dumont
in the past was a Bressonian disciple, one of the most ardent masters of bleak
and austere dramas, yet then somehow in mid-career he completely altered his
style, as he now makes proletariat comedies, as if they are an essential
component to modern life, using escapism as an alternative to the brutally
harsh realities of his earlier films, like Flandres
(2006), 2010
Top Ten Films of the Year: #5 Hadewijch, and Hors Satan
(2011). Dumont was known for his use of
non-professional actors, but all that changed with Camille
Claudel 1915 (2013), where actress Juliette Binoche’s understated performance
was the centerpiece of the film, a punishingly uncomfortable historical
drama. You’d never know this is the same
actress in this new film that features a collection of highly recognizable
French actors, none more pretentiously overwrought than the forever swooning,
high-pitched histrionics of Binoche, just one of the lunatics in the asylum of
this exaggerated comic farce, an apparent revival of sorts to Buñuel’s THE
DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE (1972), a scathing attack on the hypocrisy of
the middle class. Honestly, this film,
as written, may have been better served by the minimalist experimental
filmmaker Guy Maddin, whose silent era homage and subversive humor is more in
line with the ridiculous aspect of the material, where actors aren’t nearly as
accentuated as the surrealist production values.
As is, the film is like an experiment gone wrong in a
highbrow acting class, pushing actors well beyond the comfort zone, each making
contact with the grotesque in bizarre and wildly grandiose performances, where
each one has some sort of noticeable physical impairment or deformity that is
played for effect, where humans become caricatures instead of real, as if
playing in front of mirrors in order to amuse themselves for heightened
pleasure. Viewers may find this kind of
shtick overly ridiculous, especially since it continues throughout the entire
film, growing tiresome after a while, lacking the subversive wit of Monty
Python style comedians who do this kind of thing for a living. The French title, by the way, also the name
of one of the lead characters, loosely translates to “my dick,” used to great effect
in several of the overly raucous group scenes, causing near mayhem, but never
resorting to pie-throwing incidents. Set
in the summer of 1910, the film is a comedy of manners, a satiric dissection of
class structure, with the poorer class living along the seashore, having to
collect oysters in the bay and scavenge for what the sea has brought in at low
tide, led by a rugged seaman known as “The Eternal” (Thierry Lavieville), whose
Keatenesque face is filled with world weary crevices, the patriarch of the Bréfort
family that includes his hardened wife (Caroline Carbonnier), usually seen with
a butcher’s knife in her hand, as she carves and cooks human flesh for her
family, taking tourists out on boat rides and knocking them unconscious with
the boat oars before serving them for dinner, also 18-year old Ma Loute (Brandon
Lavieville), a seaman following in his father’s footsteps, recognizable by his
gigantic ears, and three young ruffian brothers that seem to fight all the
time. Living high atop the hill
overlooking the bay is the aristocratic Peteghem family, never seen doing a bit
of work, with servants to prepare everything for them, including the overly
anxious matriarch Isabelle (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, sister of the former First
Lady Carla Bruni), her nitwit husband André (Fabrice Luchini), who walks
hunched over with a cane speaking utter nonsense, but smiling to everyone, as
if in post-lobotomy mode, the wayward brother Christian (Jean-Luc Vincent), who
seems demented, all supposedly creatures of a degenerate family history of
incest and inbreeding that has wreaked havoc with their brains and genetic make
up, with two near identical daughters in braids that are always dressed alike and
never speak, but just make faces all the time.
Visiting her sister is the elegant and always glamorous Aude (Juliette
Binoche), wearing a feathered boa and a shamelessly ostentatious, flowered hat,
bringing along with her a young androgynous daughter Billie (Raph) with transgender
tendencies, though she may simply be a punkish cross-dresser who enjoys
altering her sexual identity.
Like a variation of the Montague’s and the Capulets, Ma
Loute and Billie are romantically inclined from the first moment they lay eyes
on each other, where their rhapsodic moments together require no words, just
rapturous expressions on their faces, causing extreme consternation on the
faces of their less than amused families, where each reviles the other. The film is largely a slapstick choreography
of human misfortune, where despite the comic overtures, Dumont continues along
the same misanthropic path, exposing the worst side of human behavior, where
humans are little more than carnivores feeding on one another, reduced to
cannibalism to survive. Deeply separated
into a society of the haves and the have nots, the Bréfort family have become
human ferries, carrying individuals in their arms, transporting them across the
shallows in order to reach the other side, where it seems all but impossible
that the haves would actually get their feet wet. This silly ritual is repeated at least half a
dozen times, and is how Ma Loute and Billie met in the first place, as he
seemed to take great delight in hoisting her in his arms, while she viewed him
as her great protector. Adding to the
comic absurdity is the highly illogical services of the town constable, Machin
(Didier Desprès), an oversized gentleman wearing a dark suit and bowler hat,
accompanied by a miniature version that follows him around, Malfoy (Cyril
Rigaux), a sounding board that allows him to test his dubious theories, a
Laurel and Hardy team where the two remain oblivious to what’s happening right
under their noses. With law and order
firmly resting in their hands, perhaps it’s no surprise that all hell breaks
loose, with the inflated looking Machin actually floating into the sky, with
Malfoy keeping him tethered to a rope, or he would simply fly away. Similarly, there are other levitation
sequences, a preposterous and surreal response to the subtle use of this device
in earlier Dumont films, like HUMANITÉ (1999), containing a brief, almost
overlooked moment that represented a transcendence from earthly matters. While the cinematography by Guillaume
Deffontaines is superb, expressing a gorgeous array of brilliant colors on the
northern Pas de Calais coastal region that are only brightened by the sunlight,
the storyline is slight, to say the least, seemingly intent on grotesque
physical comedy, where going for laughs and guffaws take the place of
ideas. The film is likely to be
extremely divisive, in the love or hate category, with the French film magazine
Cahiers du cinema naming it the 5th
best film of 2016, though the crude humor may alienate many viewers, none more
than when Ma Loute realizes he’s been conned, discovering Billie is a boy,
where he savagely beats him, holding nothing back, becoming a sick comment on a
brutal reality that is all too prevalent in society, as transgenders are often
targets of abuse, known as Trans bashing, and to the actor’s credit, this
androgynous identity was maintained throughout all Cannes public appearances. Nonetheless, Billie is the heartbeat of the picture,
where the malicious treatment leaves viewers feeling violated, where the
lawless, anarchistic tinge of lunacy prevails, like an ill wind sweeping the
landscape, supposedly wiping away all sins, yet the residue of moral rot
remains.
