Mubi Monday: The Piano Accident (2025)

A new film from writer-director Quentin Dupieux is always a reason to celebrate, as far as I'm concerned. His films aren't for everyone, but he consistently delivers weird brilliance for those who know what they're letting themselves in for.

While far from his best work, The Piano Accident is a VERY dark comedy that makes some obvious comments on modern life, social media, and the lengths that people will go to for their fifteen minutes of fame. The brilliant Adèle Exarchopoulos plays the main character, Magalie, a young woman who has become famous for videos that have her harming herself in a variety of painful stunts. Something has happened to force her into a temporary respite though. She only has the company of her assistant, Patrick (Jérôme Commandeur), but is approached/blackmailed by Simone (Sandrine Kiberlain), a woman who wants to conduct an interview that she hopes will somehow shed some light on exactly why Magalie does what she does.

Drawing a clear through line from the "MTV generation" to the voracious content consumers of today, as well as showing how we live in a state of wanting to please others from time spent seeking approval and attention from parents, Dupieux makes his feelings obvious about what many may class as entertainment. He has no love for the numbing effect of social media, and tries to offer up a warning to those who may find themselves chasing more and more extreme ways to temporarily satisfy an appetite in a mass audience that will just keep getting hungrier and hungrier while they know that the world is one internet connection away from catering to their needs.

Exarchopoulos, awkward and unhappy throughout, is fine in the lead role, although it feels more defined by the brace her character wears throughout and her nonchalant attitude to her self-mutilation. This isn't her at her best, perhaps just a bit too confined by how unwittingly trapped her character has become. Commandeur is enjoyable in his supporting role, but Kiberlain gets the best moments, forcing our lead to really reflect on what she is aiming to achieve with her actions.

It may say as much about Dupieux as it does about what he's being critical of, and some will view this as nothing more than an old man yelling at clouds, but The Piano Accident is certainly made more uncomfortable to watch because of knowing that it feels pretty accurate. There have been a number of other films made about the impact of social media since we started to really become embroiled in it, one or two better than this, but this feels like a desperate warning, probably far too late, to those who think they can grab their slice of fame and fortune by simply acting like an idiot on camera for a few seconds at a time.

7/10

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Mubi Monday: Yannick (2023)

Writer-director Quentin Dupieux has been doing great work for some time now, using the medium of film to have lots of fun and probe at the boundaries between audience and artist. Often using some wonderfully surreal premises, he is an acquired taste I have tended to always enjoy.

The starting point for Yannick is a stage play. Our lead character, the titular Yannick (Raphaël Quenard) is unhappy with it. He has travelled to see it, made it the centrepiece of his day off from work, and it is not distracting him from his own issues. We know this when he stands up to inform the three stage actors of this. One thing leads to another, and eventually leads to Yannick holding the actors and audience hostage as they work together to improve the play and give everyone a much better experience.

Clocking in at just over an hour in length (67 minutes is the full runtime, which includes credits), Yannick is a smart and intelligent look at the relationship between, yes, the audience and the artist. Dupieux is looking at a different facet of that relationship though, and I couldn’t help but view this as an exploration of the many recent incidents we have seen where fandoms turn toxic. Being a fan of something, or even just wanting to be a fan of something that doesn’t live up to your expectations and/or standards, doesn’t entitle you to attempt any kind of hostile takeover. Feedback and collaboration are both important, but it should all be for the right reasons, and at the right time. That might just be me though, and it is a stance not necessarily supported by the third act of this film, which may show Dupieux simply underlining how creators shouldn’t be averse to contributions from those with different viewpoints.

Wherever he lands on the issue, Dupieux does a great job of presenting a scenario that gives viewers plenty to chew on. Feeling very much like a play itself, the film benefits from the short runtime, being so densely packed with great dialogue and ideas, as much as it benefits from the casting.

While Pio Marmaï, Blanche Gardin, and Sébastien Chassagne are all very good in their roles, the actors in the play who are frustrated, angered, and scared at various times throughout the process of reworking their material, Quenard does a fantastic job of making his character feel unpredictable, and potentially dangerous, without ever seeming despicable. I recently enjoyed Quenard’s performance in Junkyard Dog, but this very different role has shown me that he is someone I definitely want to see as a lead in more movies.

Typically playful and thought-provoking, Yannick is another excellent work from Dupieux that will easily please fans of his style. It might even work well as a starting point for those who have yet to explore his filmography (the dialogue and dynamic crystallizing his main themes in a way that is more digestible than it is in some of his other films). Highly recommended, but mainly to people who will already have at least some inkling of what Dupieux likes to do.

8/10

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Mubi Monday: Incredible But True (2022)

There are certain words you could use to describe writer-director Quentin Dupieux. Unoriginal isn't one of them. Nor is mundane. This is a man who has given us a movie about a sentient rubber tyre (the quite superb Rubber), a coveted deerskin jacket (Deerskin), a giant fly that others want to exploit (Mandibles), and other very odd central ideas. I still have so many of his movies to watch, and each one I finally get to just reminds me that I should prioritise his entire filmography.

Incredible But True is all about a married couple, Alain (Alain Chabat) and Marie (Léa Drucker), who are looking to buy a new home. Although unsure about the latest place they are viewing, their opinions change when they are shown an unbelievable Unique Selling Point. The house has what looks to be a ladder-accessed basement that actually takes people 12 hours into the future while reversing the ageing process by a few days. That might be enough weirdness for one movie, but there's more. It turns out that Alain's boss, Gérard (Benoît Magimel), has had his manhood replaced with a piece of impressive technology that can do everything you'd expect it to do, plus a bit more. Gérard's partner, Jeanne (Anaïs Demoustier), is very happy, but Gérard starts to fret when he feels that neither Alain nor Marie were as impressed by his revelation as he expected them to be.

Like every other film from Dupieux, the emphasis here is on the ideas beating at the heart of the movie, ideas that have much more intelligence and depth than any plot summary might signify. The writing and direction are good enough to convey the bizarre plotting, but Dupieux also knows exactly where he is taking viewers. Viewers may not necessarily realise that there's a point to it all, and they may wonder where it will all end, but Dupieux is an assured helmer, and he uses the film to explore themes of vanity, mortality, and, well, the pros and cons of having a robo-penis fitted (okay, that's the vanity again, but I wanted to write the term "robo-penis").

Chabat and Drucker do very good work in their lead roles, playing everything as straight as they have to while things start to get stranger and stranger. Magimel and Demoustier, on the other hand, get to overact slightly and lean more into the comedy of their strange predicament. One or two others move in and out of the frame, just enough to remind us that this is an unreal tale taking place in a reality akin to our own, and everyone is well-served by Dupieux's direction.

I suspect that I say this every time I review a Quentin Dupieux movie, but those who are familiar with his work will already know whether or not they want to explore more of his filmography. For those who do, like myself, then it's full of constant surprises and delight. For those who don't, well, I doubt there's any one feature that could change your mind. Incredible But True is perfectly in line with everything else he's done. I loved it.

8/10

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Mubi Monday: Deerskin (2019)

Although I am a very big fan of Rubber, the Quentin Dupieux film about a rubber tyre with the ability to kill people (there's much more to it than that, but that is the gist of it), I had actually never seen any other film from the talented writer-director until now. I definitely need to check out more of his filmography because Deerskin was another film I really enjoyed.

Jean Dujardin plays Georges, a man apparently at a crossroads in his life. Recently separated/divorced, he ends up staying in a small French village, where he befriends a bartender, Denise (Adèle Haenel), who also has aspirations of working in editing. Georges decides to convince Denise that he is currently trying to put together a film, despite a serious lack of funds. It's not really his idea though. The main premise for the film is formulated by a new deerskin jacket that Georges has bought for himself. Yes, this is a film in which a deerskin jacket communicates with someone, and more specifically relays a message about wanting to be the only jacket in the world.

Although he presents a lot of things onscreen that could easily be dismissed as silly, dumb even, Dupieux is a very smart film-maker. I don't think he's ever made a movie without a firm idea of the things that he really wants to say. Deerskin may be about some deerskin clothing, on the surface, but it feels like it covers a lot of ground, much of it open to interpretation by the viewer. Does the jacket, and other items of clothing that Georges ends up coveting, represent an attempt to reclaim anything that can make someone feel special? This is a standard mid-life crisis on display, it just so happens to be one that centres on something a bit less flashy than a fast car, motorbike, or younger sexual partner. There are also the obvious comparisons to make between the business of film-making itself and how things play out between Georges and Denise, with the balance of power shifting as Denise supplies money to Georges while he delivers footage that he wants made into a film. 

And let's not forget that, as meta as Dupieux so often loves to be, the film itself may be ultimately pointless, a means to an end as Georges convinces people to swear off wearing a jacket while they ditch their outermost layer of clothing. People have made many films over the years that have been completed by lying to, and manipulating, others. Deerskin seems to want to also explore that concept, one that will not be unfamiliar to other film-makers (whether it's getting footage without a permit, making up different tales to secure financing, or any other way in which the truth is made more malleable to get a sellable end product).

Dujardin is very good in the lead role here, a man who has his sense of desperation eased by the company of others who can share their own aspirations. He's a schemer, but it's a scheme that allows viewers to stay on his side for a decent part of the runtime. Haenel is just as good, a bright and optimistic young woman who surely knows that something isn't quite right with the arrangement she gets herself into. Is she playing a long game, or is she naive enough to think everything will work out for the best? Haenel gives nothing away with her performance, and even the very end of the film leaves some interesting questions about her character.

As well as writing and directing, Dupieux is also the cinematographer and editor. He knows how to have his vision look best onscreen, and the music by Janko Nilovic is a fine accompaniment. Which isn't to dismiss the good work of anyone else behind the camera. It's just very obviously a Dupieux movie. Not quite as good as Rubber, it's still very enjoyable. I highly recommend it to anyone familiar with Dupieux's style.

8/10

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