A bumbling detective’s size is played for laughs in Bruno Dumont’s dreary black comedy
For a black comedy, Slack Bay isn’t exactly funny. The latest from wacky critical darling Bruno Dumont is a nihilistic, grimace-inducing vaudeville murder mystery. Set in 1910 in Slack Bay, a fictional vacation hotspot in coastal France, it follows the spherical Machin (Didier Després) and his sidekick, Malfoy (Cyril Rigaux), two bumbling detectives investigating a string of disappeared tourists. Machin’s shape and size are played for slapstick laughs, but it’s a taste thing – there are only so many laughs to be squeezed from watching a large man roll down a dune.
The film’s quirky cast of characters also includes the Brufort family (a pack of quietly cannibalistic mussel fishers) and the Van Peteghems (dim aristocrats led by a comically shrill Juliette Binoche). The film looks and feels like a dreary day at the beach,...
For a black comedy, Slack Bay isn’t exactly funny. The latest from wacky critical darling Bruno Dumont is a nihilistic, grimace-inducing vaudeville murder mystery. Set in 1910 in Slack Bay, a fictional vacation hotspot in coastal France, it follows the spherical Machin (Didier Després) and his sidekick, Malfoy (Cyril Rigaux), two bumbling detectives investigating a string of disappeared tourists. Machin’s shape and size are played for slapstick laughs, but it’s a taste thing – there are only so many laughs to be squeezed from watching a large man roll down a dune.
The film’s quirky cast of characters also includes the Brufort family (a pack of quietly cannibalistic mussel fishers) and the Van Peteghems (dim aristocrats led by a comically shrill Juliette Binoche). The film looks and feels like a dreary day at the beach,...
- 6/18/2017
- by Simran Hans
- The Guardian - Film News
Author: Stefan Pape
Bruno Dumont has been behind several profound, bleak dramas across his career, culminating in his most recent directorial outing Camille Claudel 1915. Yet the Frenchman now returns to the silver screen with a playful, farcical endeavour that is stylistic in a comparable way to the films of Wes Anderson. But fear not, the filmmaker maintains his dark edge, similarly, in that regard, to British sitcom The League of Gentleman. Though a hybrid between the two, it’s hard not to feel such a description oversells this endeavour somewhat, as while an indelible cinematic experience, it’s undoubtedly a flawed one.
Set in the summer of 1910, we delve into the lives of two socially contrasting families in a small beachside resort. There are the affluent, extravagant Van Peteghem’s, a group of degenerates visiting their holiday home, with André (Fabrice Luchini) and Aude (Juliette Binoche) getting unwittingly caught...
Bruno Dumont has been behind several profound, bleak dramas across his career, culminating in his most recent directorial outing Camille Claudel 1915. Yet the Frenchman now returns to the silver screen with a playful, farcical endeavour that is stylistic in a comparable way to the films of Wes Anderson. But fear not, the filmmaker maintains his dark edge, similarly, in that regard, to British sitcom The League of Gentleman. Though a hybrid between the two, it’s hard not to feel such a description oversells this endeavour somewhat, as while an indelible cinematic experience, it’s undoubtedly a flawed one.
Set in the summer of 1910, we delve into the lives of two socially contrasting families in a small beachside resort. There are the affluent, extravagant Van Peteghem’s, a group of degenerates visiting their holiday home, with André (Fabrice Luchini) and Aude (Juliette Binoche) getting unwittingly caught...
- 6/13/2017
- by Stefan Pape
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Fabrice Luchini, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Lauréna Thellier, Juliette Binoche, Raph, Manon Royère as the Van Peteghems in Bruno Dumont's wild Slack Bay (Ma Loute)
"I think each one of us has in us both some Brufort (Thierry Lavieville and Brandon Lavieville) and some Van Peteghem (see photo above)."
Bruno Dumont's latest, the musical Jeannette, L'Enfance De Jeanne d'Arc, will screen at the Cannes Film Festival where his Li'l Quinquin and Slack Bay (Ma Loute) had their world premieres. In our conversation the director/screenwriter discussed the character of the brother, Paul Claudel (Jean-Luc Vincent) in Camille Claudel 1915, the lens of the grotesque, pushing the grandparents in Li'l Quinquin to go beyond what is expected and how "grace is really within the reach of all of us."
Bruno Dumont on Camille Claudel 1915: "I think for me, using the grotesque, it's almost as though it were a lens.
"I think each one of us has in us both some Brufort (Thierry Lavieville and Brandon Lavieville) and some Van Peteghem (see photo above)."
Bruno Dumont's latest, the musical Jeannette, L'Enfance De Jeanne d'Arc, will screen at the Cannes Film Festival where his Li'l Quinquin and Slack Bay (Ma Loute) had their world premieres. In our conversation the director/screenwriter discussed the character of the brother, Paul Claudel (Jean-Luc Vincent) in Camille Claudel 1915, the lens of the grotesque, pushing the grandparents in Li'l Quinquin to go beyond what is expected and how "grace is really within the reach of all of us."
Bruno Dumont on Camille Claudel 1915: "I think for me, using the grotesque, it's almost as though it were a lens.
- 5/7/2017
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Fabrice Luchini, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Lauréna Thellier, Juliette Binoche, Raph, Manon Royère as the Van Peteghems in Bruno Dumont's wild Slack Bay (Ma Loute)
"I think each one of us has in us both some Brufort (Thierry Lavieville and Brandon Lavieville) and some Van Peteghem (see photo above)."
Bruno Dumont's latest, the musical Jeannette, L'Enfance De Jeanne d'Arc, will screen at the Cannes Film Festival where his Li'l Quinquin and Slack Bay (Ma Loute) had their world premieres. In our conversation the director/screenwriter discussed the character of the brother, Paul Claudel (Jean-Luc Vincent) in Camille Claudel 1915, the lens of the grotesque, pushing the grandparents in Li'l Quinquin to go beyond what is expected and how "grace is really within the reach of all of us."
Ma Loute (Brandon Lavieville) and Billie (Raph), police inspectors Machin (Didier Després) and Malfoy (Cyril Rigaux)
When tourists start to disappear...
"I think each one of us has in us both some Brufort (Thierry Lavieville and Brandon Lavieville) and some Van Peteghem (see photo above)."
Bruno Dumont's latest, the musical Jeannette, L'Enfance De Jeanne d'Arc, will screen at the Cannes Film Festival where his Li'l Quinquin and Slack Bay (Ma Loute) had their world premieres. In our conversation the director/screenwriter discussed the character of the brother, Paul Claudel (Jean-Luc Vincent) in Camille Claudel 1915, the lens of the grotesque, pushing the grandparents in Li'l Quinquin to go beyond what is expected and how "grace is really within the reach of all of us."
Ma Loute (Brandon Lavieville) and Billie (Raph), police inspectors Machin (Didier Després) and Malfoy (Cyril Rigaux)
When tourists start to disappear...
- 5/7/2017
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Bruno Dumont talks Ma Loute and his Cannes musical Jeannette l'enfance de Jeanne d'Arc with Anne-Katrin Titze Photo: Ellen Sowchek
Bruno Dumont's cathartic and fearlessly comical journey Slack Bay (Ma Loute) stars an expressive Fabrice Luchini, a daring Juliette Binoche, and a blushing Valeria Bruni Tedeschi with Raph, a bit reminiscent of Katharine Hepburn in George Cukor's Sylvia Scarlett, an eternal Thierry Lavieville, Jean-Luc Vincent ("We know what to do, but we do not do"), a fascinated Brandon Lavieville, and the Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy-like duo Cyril Rigaux and Didier Després.
The Van Peteghems - André (Fabrice Luchini), Aude (Juliette Binoche), Billie (Raph): "You know, the way Juliette behaves, it's almost as though she is laughing at herself."
The Camille Claudel 1915 and Li'l Quinquin director's latest film Jeannette l'enfance de Jeanne d'Arc (Jeannette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc), based on a text by Charles Péguy,...
Bruno Dumont's cathartic and fearlessly comical journey Slack Bay (Ma Loute) stars an expressive Fabrice Luchini, a daring Juliette Binoche, and a blushing Valeria Bruni Tedeschi with Raph, a bit reminiscent of Katharine Hepburn in George Cukor's Sylvia Scarlett, an eternal Thierry Lavieville, Jean-Luc Vincent ("We know what to do, but we do not do"), a fascinated Brandon Lavieville, and the Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy-like duo Cyril Rigaux and Didier Després.
The Van Peteghems - André (Fabrice Luchini), Aude (Juliette Binoche), Billie (Raph): "You know, the way Juliette behaves, it's almost as though she is laughing at herself."
The Camille Claudel 1915 and Li'l Quinquin director's latest film Jeannette l'enfance de Jeanne d'Arc (Jeannette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc), based on a text by Charles Péguy,...
- 5/2/2017
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
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