Réalité

Greetings again from the darkness. For those who found last year's Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) to be too linear and overly coherent, be sure to track down the latest from writer/director Quentin Dupieux. You might recognize the name from his films that have developed cult followings – Rubber (2010) and Wrong (2012).

Dupieux seems obsessed with the blurred lines between the conscious and sub-conscious, so one can only imagine what he means by titling his movie "Reality". To ensure that we remain in a constant cloud of confusion, there is a key character who is a young girl (Kyla Kenedy) acting in her own movie. Her name is … what else? … Reality.

One can't really use the term plot when describing the film, but what follows is my best attempt. Jason Tantra (played by the always terrific Alain Chabat) is a camera man on a locally produced TV talk show about cooking that stars a rat costume-wearing host Denis (Jon Heder, Napoleon Dynamite). Jason wants to make his own movie starring a reluctant Denis (who suffers from eczema on the inside), and pitches his sci-fi idea of human-killing TV sets to film producer Bob Marshall (played by Jonathan Lambert). Marshall agrees to back the movie if Jason can come up with an award-winning perfect groan of pain within 48 hours. Meanwhile Reality (the girl) is being filmed by avant-garde director Zog (John Glover), and she finds a blue video cassette inside the gut of a wild boar killed by her father. In the process of trying to watch the tape, she spots a cross-dressing Eric Wareheim (from "Tim and Eric" fame) driving a military jeep through town. In one of his many dreams, Jason pictures himself at the awards ceremony where he wins for best groan … the award is presented by Oscar winning director Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist) and Roxane Mesquida (who was in Rubber). The topper of all sequences involves Jason having a phone conversation with producer Marshall while at the theatre watching his unmade movie while Marshall simultaneously has an in-person meeting with Jason. If you follow any of the above, this movie is made for you. If you didn't follow any of it, congratulations on your continued socially acceptable level of sanity.

Inside jokes abound here, and Dupieux takes a few shots at the filmmaking business, and what constitutes creativity. Fellow French filmmaker Michel Gondry (The Science of Sleep, 2006) may be the closest comparison to Dupieux, but the latter seems more focused on pushing the boundaries of lunacy and yes, Reality.

Pun quite intended. If you know the director, you will be aware that the movies he has put out can be called anything - but ordinary. Or predictable for that matter. Having said that, this is especially weird ... with many things not making sense ... well in the real world. On the other hand, what is reality if not fiction? Or something along those lines.

If you are being told certain things, if life itself unravels in front of you ... if you have to look for a special scream ... which is necessary, because otherwise the great movie you think you have ready to be produced ... well will not be made. There is so much to unpack, there are so many things that cancel each other out, there are so many expectations that are willfully not met. There is craziness and then there is this ... tough to rate and/or review. So I can only tell you what you can expect .. sort of. Because nothing can prepare you ... other than having watched his other movies that is.

There is genius in this film. If you are bored with much of the formulaic output of Hollywood, but still have a passion for film, this might just be for you. Granted, it's not for everyone. I can only speak for myself. I still have chills from my first viewing. Only after it was over did I understand I had just watched the second film from the man behind Rubber. Glad I didn't even know, as expectations would have been quite high. Having grown up with rented video tapes in the 80's, this speaks to me on an intuitive level, using a language of cues, but remixed with a great deal of finesse and an engaging visual style, which had me grabbing frames here and there for inspiration in my architectural work. While shot with a keen eye for color, depth and composition, the film's strength lies in its mastery of the time domain.

The storyline edits weave jaggedly into each other in a provocative manner and the art house ingredient, psychedelic in its simplicity, works its magic once it has taken hold of you. I see no room for improvement here, it is simply a great work. Where Rubber was a testament to the strength of the storytelling formula, this is the master wielding it just forcefully enough to grab people's attention. I suspect there's a lot more where this came from. As someone who lives with parts of stories, unfinished tracks slaved over in the recording studio, this ode to the behind- the-scenes heroics of unsung heroes was beyond captivating. Like an Ayahuasca trip, it is best described as liberating...like an itch, scratched at last. Bravo!

I've seen my fair share of confusing films throughout my life. But they're usually confusing in such different ways. I don't think i'd ever seen a film quite like this. It can definitely be enjoyable on a scene-to-scene basis, no doubt, but it can also leave you wondering just what exactly is going on. Does the film amount to anything? I'm not quite sure, but I did enjoy it. It's ded=finitely a very divisive film, one where people will either love or hate (and the reason I don't either is because I do think I'm more open tot his sort of thing. I wouldn't recommend this to all audiences (maybe not even to most) but I do think there is a lot of merit here.

This is an incredibly odd film that basically occupies itself with contradicting everything you might expect. From the narrative structure of the film itself, down to the smallest details. A little girl's name is Reality yet she experiences things that can't possibly happen like seeing a videotape come out of a boar's stomach or her mother reading her a bedtime story that exactly recounts what happened to her that day. A cooking show host wears a rat costume (hygiene?), a french speaking producer has an American name (Bob Marshall), a starting director pitches the worst idea for a movie ever and says it took him four years to come up with it and the producer likes it but focuses on a very small detail. The movie is build on these types of contradictions, leading to funny scenes (the smoking scene is hilarious), but often to just plain absurdity.

Because the narrative structure of the movie itself is contradictory to what you as a viewer expect from a movie the whole thing stays enjoyable, literally anything can happen. In the end everything sort of works out and the story lines are tied in with each other in a way that makes sense. Not 'real' sense, but within the movie's logic (or lack thereof). I agree with another reviewer that one can't really compare this movie to anything else (maybe Dupieux earlier film Wrong), which makes grading it a tad difficult. On the whole I found it an incredibly amusing experience, though I can understand that other people might not. But if you are open minded about movies...

Step into the world of Realité, in which secretaries are creepy, you can go into work and discover that you are already there and if you decline a cigarette because you don't smoke, you will get one forced on you.