Film: Ma Loute

You thought pigs would fly before Bruno Dumont made a burlesque period farce? Guess again. Ma Loute is exactly that.

The director of existentialist, grim, monumental films like La vie de Jésus (1997) discovered his lighter side when he made P’tit Quinquin, an invigorating, wacky, unconventional TV series (complete screening at Galeries on 9 June) that gave him the taste for more. Ma Loute, which the French love, is more. Too much more. At the (magnificently filmed) northern French coast one hundred years ago, a bourgeois family clashes with a fishing family. People disappear, take off, swell up, or get devoured, and it is difficult to tell who is more deranged. Conceptually, Dumont’s madcap class warfare makes a big impression. The problem is the humour. The first time that a fat police inspector tumbles over is funny. By the third time it is just old. Good slapstick is no joke. The exaggerated performances by Binoche and co are more ridiculous than hilarious.

MA LOUTE
FR, 2016, dir.: Bruno Dumont, act.: Brandon Lavieville, Juliette Binoche, Fabrice Luchini, 122 min.