Movie Review: Slack Bay

Slack Bay *** / *****

Directed by: Bruno Dumont.

Written by: Bruno Dumont.

Starring: Fabrice Luchini (André Van Peteghem), Juliette Binoche (Aude Van Peteghem), Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (Isabelle Van Peteghem), Jean-Luc Vincent (Christian Van Peteghem), Didier Desprès (Alfred Machin), Brandon Lavieville (Ma Loute Brufort), Raph (Billie Van Peteghem), Cyril Rigaux (Malfoy), Didier Després (Detective Inspector Machin), Cyril Rigaux (Detective Malfoy).

 

Bruno Dumont’s Slack Bay is simultaneously unmistakably one of his films, as it addresses the themes and obsessions that has run through his entire body-of-work, and completely different than anything he has ever made before – because he has completely changed the tone of his latest film. Dumont has always obsessed over absurdities in French society – and often focused, unblinkingly, at a parade of miseries in front of his camera – rapes and murders, often extreme versions of both, have happened in his films, and his camera captures them with unblinking, cold, detachment more often than not. You don’t just watch Dumont’s films, you’re punished by them. Slack Bay tells a story not unlike any of Dumont’s other films – it actually closely resembles his last one, the four hour, made for French TV Li’l Quinquin – except this time, Dumont has framed it all as an absurdist, over-the-top comedy. I’m not sure the film works – I’m not sure that the film had any possible way in which it could “work” – but you kind of have to admire Dumont for making something this bonkers.

 

The film, set in 1910 on the French coast, is about two families. The Van Peteghem’s are wealthy eccentrics, who live up on the hill, and have nothing of any importance to say or do – they obsessed over things that do not matter – the patriarch Andre (Fabrice Luchini) lurches around his vast property taking up time with meaningless observations, and his wife Isabelle (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) obsesses over the cleanliness of the house – driving the staff nuts. Andre’s sister – Aude (Juliette Binoche) exists, I think, only for the joy of watching the normally serious Binoche go entirely over-the-top goofy – the entire performance full of eye rolls and giggling, as she basically says nothing of value the whole time. Down below, right on the water, are the Brufort’s – a poor fishing family, who make extra money transporting tourists across the water (they literally pick them up and carry them over) – and sometimes, they knock out those tourists, kill them and eat them – something the movie tells us almost casually, very early in the proceedings. The only other major characters are the Laurel & Hardy-like detectives who show up to try and figure out where all these missing tourists have gone – which shouldn’t be too hard to figure out, because it appears that these are the only two families in the area. Then again, they are not very good detectives – as one of them is always falling down – and rolling, rolling, rolling, down hills.

 

This community is so isolated, it’s no wonder that eventually these two families are going to come together in some strange way. That happens when Billie (Raph), the teenager daughter of the Van Peteghem’s, falls for Ma Loute (Brandon Lavieville), a teenage Brufort (who also, oddly, is the title character of the film – which was titled Ma Loute in France). Their relationship is, of course, doomed from the outset, but is a way for Dumont to bring these two families into contact with each other.

 

Dumont is clearly trying for some sort of Bunuelian exercise in surreal absurdity – a satire of French culture, both high and low, in which everyone is an asshole and a hypocrite. You have to admire the ambition behind that to a certain extent. Yet, I don’t quite think his surreal satire lands quite as it wants it to. The film is all over-the-map, his target is probably too broad, and so the whole satire seems rather bland instead of biting. It’s still something to witness to be sure – with some great performances sprinkled in (newcomer Raph is particularly good as Billie – the character who really grounds this thing as much as possible) – and it’s amusing to see someone normally as serious as Dumont, repackage his film as an over-the-top comedy. Does it work? Does it have to?