That Day

With Ce jour-la (That Day), writer-director Raoul Ruiz has spun a masterful absurdist comedy.

A clearly mad (but sweetly angelic) Livia (the perfectly cast Elsa Zylberstein) consults her 'runes' and determines that her 'heaven' -- the titular 'Day' -- is on its way. Sweet atonement, whatever that means. She meets Pointpoirot (Bernard Giraudeau), a murderous (but amiable) psychopath, when she tries to murder him with a hammer, a symbolic weapon that lingers in the film.

As mayhem surrounds them and the bodies pile up (they're regularly rearranged neatly), the Swiss policemen sip coffee, chat, and do nothing. Everything, they say, will work itself out. This lassitude by officialdom is, by itself, hilarious, refreshing and revealing.

This is not just a brilliant flight into what used to be called 'gallows humour'. Ruiz' tale could be an allegory on that 'banality of evil' we've heard so much about; it could be a metaphor for our indifference to killing everywhere; it could be an escape from the murderous madness plaguing the world. Read what you will into it; this is a work of art disguised as comedy. It's a deliciously way-off-centre film that can upset us too much if we really think about it.

I loved seeing the always-magnetic French film veteran Michel Piccoli as the patriarch. He's still explosive after all these years. I stopped watching Hollywood movies about a year ago, and Ce jour-la confirms why. Since La-la Land loves to swipe European movie ideas, we might see a remake, a light comedy perhaps, something with, say, Cameron Diaz and Jack Black set around, oh, a state fair?