LOUIS GARREL, LÉA SEYDOUX
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QUENTIN DUPIEUX: THE SEOND ACT/LE DEUXIÈME acte (2024) - Rendez-Vous with FRench Cinema

Jokey Cannes opener

A Pirandellian, glossy performance , this Quentin Dupieux signals his mainstream arrival, in a way: it features three of France's most high profile actors, Vincent Lindon, Léa Seydoux, and Louis Garrel, along with Raphaël Quenard as Willy, a friend of David (Louis Garrel) who brings him in to have sex with his girlfriend Florence Druckder (Léa Seydoux), a famous actor, because he can't. She then brings in her father Guillaume Tardieu (Vincent Lindon), just because. Things aren't fully explained: it's very much a world of gesture and facade.

And of quietly show-offy cinematic technique. The opening segment of the film consists of two very long dialogue-intensive tracking shots, first of David (Garrel) and Christian aka /willy (Quenard) walking and talking side by side, , then of David and Guillaume doing the same. Then they arrive at a rural outpost, like a road house, called Le Deuxième Acte (The Second Act).

As the dialogue preceeds it emerges that this is all a film shoot, though when they're doing the film itself and when they're just talking out of character is intentionally kept vague at times. The whole game is to shift back and forth between the two, to blur the boundaries without stopping the flow of talk. Guillaume and Willy both say improvisationally un-PC things during the long tracking walks that David fusses about because he says since this is being filmed, they'll get in trouble. And at the end, Guillaume, who has said he can't abide trans people or "fags" (the traditional un-PC French term used here is "pédés,") turns out to be, himself gay and now talking to his male partner/lover - unless, as is possible, this last scene is that, a last scene. Get it? No, well, this is a Quentin Dupieux film.

Other scenes: a waiter comes to serve the four inside the Second Acte restaurnat, but pouring them all glasses of wine, his hand shakes so much it spills all over theplace. He is no waitor at all but a bad actor. He reveals that this is his first job performing as an extra (figurant) and he is so excited about it he can't control his hands. He has to quit eventually and, in his car, takes out a pistol and shoots himself. It's all a stunt.

In another sequence Florence and Willy are in a back room and he approaches her for a kiss, which she takes as an assault. He says since they are going to do this in the fllm, he was merely getting in a bit of practice. But she threatens to sue, and calls her agent or advocate to insist she be allowed to withdraw from the shoot and still be reimbursed.

Guiallume takes a call, interrupting the shoot, which turns out to be an offer to perform in the next film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Guiallaume often talks about how important he is, his enormous experience as an actor (for which he demands authority over everyone else, including the AI director), but he insists also on his worshipful admiration of Paul Thomas Anderson.

All this, the biggest joke or gimmick of all, is the first ever case of a film directed by AI. The "director" appears on a laptop held up to the actors by an assistant.

Some of this reminds me of Jørgen Leth and Lars von Trier's (less jokey, more intellectually challenging) The Five Obstructions (2003). The Second Act is a film that deconstructs itself constantly and breaks down the fourth wall. It also allows the actors sometimes to make sophisticated fun of themselves, though whether Seydoux spends excessive amounts on clothes and makeup or Lindon is excessively macho and boastful or Raphaël Quenard has some sexist ideas I don't know.

I found this all very funny until, that is, I started to think it wasn't as much of a laugh as most average episodes of "That '70s Show." And then it came to feel rather tame. But it's still a stylish, neatly constructed piece from Dupieux, perhaps his most elegant and widely accessible, while still quite odd.

Showing:
Saturday, March 8 at 9:00pm – Introduction by Vincent Lindon
Thursday, March 13 at 4:00pm

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.