Ma Loute

Only French can do a movie like this !

Cast is brilliant !

It's a dark comedy, quite absurd and... very different !

The locations are a magnificent part of France !

Binoche drags this movie down. Most of the other participants, especially Luchini, manage to actually be funny, while she does a tone-deaf pantomime and kind of walks all over everyone else whenever she's in a scene. The misanthropy that permeated 'Li'l Quinquin' is also present here, with Dumont seeming to say that everywhere you turn, you run into idiots. The poor are barely human at all, the middle class is a bunch of bumbling idiots, while the "upper" class is delusional and degenerate. Some of the cinematography is quite beautiful, with an almost 3D quality to it.

It's a surreal macabre comedy, populated mostly by nasty cartoons, many of them are simply grotesque. While Bruno Dumont, the writer director of this film does tell us a very clear story, namely we all will understand what did actually take place on this bay, he never bothers explaining the reasons for the bizarre behavior of his cartoon characters. So we get an unsolveable mystery filled with mean caricatures of the uppermost bourgeoisie and of the police. He does get some of the best actors and actresses in France hamming their way through this weird story. And I would've rated it higher if I thought there was a reason behind this folly. One thing is sure, even if Dumont has some bizarre reasoning for this story - he doesn't want to reveal it to his audience.

One more issue I have to refer to: the name of this film. In English its Slack Bay, which alludes to the bay and to the nature of its residences. In Hebrew it became Disappearance Bay alluding to the mystery taking place there. The French name, that probably is the original is Ma Loute, the name of one of the main characters of this movie. Each name signifies different intentions, and I can't see why the original French name wasn't kept. You don't really have to translate a name.

Anyone who doubted that Bruno Dumont could do comedy might have been surprised by "P'tit Quinquin" which was weirdly funny, surreal and highly imaginative. However, if you skipped "P'tit Quinquin" and have come straight to "Slack Bay", then your doubts will have been confirmed for this bit of slapstick is about as funny as an appendectomy. The setting is the Northern French coast in the summer of 1910 and follows the far-from-hilarious exploits of three sets of characters; a well-to-to family, there on vacation, a local family of muscle-gatherers and a couple of policemen, one very large and fat, the other small and thin, there to investigate some mysterious disappearances.

The policemen are obviously based on Laurel and Hardy, though it's unlikely this pair will raise a smile let alone a laugh. Dumont's idea of comedy is to have most of his characters fall down at regular intervals though some do take to levitating by the time the film is over. There is, of course, a sicker and more Dumontesque sensibility at work here, since the muscle-gatherers are also a family of cannibals, ('Anyone want more foot', says the mother to her sons), who are killing off the tourists and eating them.

The star, for want of a better word, of this rubbish is Juliette Binoche, cast as a comic grande-dame. At least she aligns herself with Dumont's vision which, in this case, isn't saying much. Visually the film is very beautiful and like "P'tit Quinquin" is weird enough not be boring but that is about all you can say in its favour. This one is for Dumont completists only.

The centennial anniversary of the breaking of WWI was an opportunity for several books to be written and films to be made (most of them documentaries) not only about the war itself, but also about the years that preceded it. Those were the finals years of a period that had started at the end of the Franco – Prussian war in 1870 and had seen a period of more than four decades of peace, never encountered in the written history of Europe. For many people living it those times La Belle Epoque seemed to signal an apparent stability based on the balance between the power of a few Empires and Republics. A middle class appeared in Europe allowing for economic development, arts flourished, and life was good for many. Yet, the political tensions were present at the level of the relations between the big powers in Europe, and many of the national societies were sick. Which is exactly the theme of Bruno Dumont's film 'Ma Loute'.

Dumont is one of the masters of a cinema sub-genre which I will call 'films about degenerated people' (or social, or family relations, or a combination of these. Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet 's Delicatessen is another example of the genre, so is Dogtooth by Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos. 'Ma Loute' not only takes the genre one step ahead because of the quality of the execution, but also provides political and historical dimensions by locating the story of mysterious disappearances, social conflict between the rich tourists and the poor fishermen and a love story which is impossible for many reasons in a precise place – the North-West of France close to Calais and time – the end of La Belle Epoque.

Viewers should be warned that this is no easy film to watch. 5% of the audience walked out the theater I was in. Among those who stayed I suspect that half disliked what they have seen, with the negative reactions between considering the theme disgusting to ridiculous. The acting style is also very heavily and intentionally exaggerated. It is the description of sick families, of hateful relations between classes, of a non-functional society at all levels. The fact that all these seem to get some rational explanation may satisfy for a moment, but then the film slides in a combination of grotesque and fantastic (the levitation scenes) that is close to genial. Watching fine actors as Fabrice Luchini, Juliette Binoche,or Valeria Bruni Tedeschi is of course a delight but do not expect them to act like in any other movies that you have seen with them in the past. The young couple acted by Brandon Lavieville and Raph both at their first film add some level of innocence, but all is under the sign of the deformed mirrors here.

'Ma Louche' is a very different kind of cinema experience, viewers take risks watching it, and they are rewarded with a surprise which according to taste and approach can be very good or very unpleasant.