With 13 features made since 2007, and six in the last four years, French DJ-turned-director Quentin Dupuis is clearly no slouch. Not only has he helmed all of these films – he has written, shot and edited them, as well as composed many of their scores.
Starting with his original Deadpan debut, Rubberand until last year Yank And Daali!Dupieux has achieved an impressive degree of success, gradually improving with each new film to a style and tone that is entirely his own.
Second Act
The bottom line
It doesn’t get much more meta than that.
Location: Cannes Film Festival (out of competition, opening night film)
Cast: Léa Seydoux, Vincent Lindon, Louis Garrel, Raphael Cuinard, Manuel Guillot
Director, Screenwriter: Quentin Dupaix
1 hour 22 minutes
If, however, there is a drawback to this constant activity, it is that all his films have very short running times because they lack classic narratives. They’re well-executed, high-concept affairs that mix comedy, sci-fi, horror, and other genres in entertaining ways, but they often play like long other works with no real ending.
Dupeaux was probably aware of this flaw when he decided to call it his latest feature. Second Act (Second Act), although whether or not he was being ironic is unclear. What is certain is that this is his first work to tackle his profession in a Pirandello-esque film-within-a-film that plays out behind the scenes like Francois Truffaut’s favorite and turbulent competition. Night for day.
Like Truffaut, Dupieux shines a light on the wild egos of some of France’s most famous actors, revealing the sparks that fly when those egos snap together on set. But he also addresses more contemporary topics such as the emergence of AI as a cost-cutting tool, and the belated arrival of cancellation culture and the #MeToo movement in the French film industry.
Regarding the latter, rumors that accusations against some well-known actors, producers and directors may appear in the French press have changed. Second Act A more meta affair than Dupeaux probably ever intended — especially since some of his film’s scenes deal with these same issues. This, perhaps ironically, could bring the film even more attention with its near-simultaneous release on French screens, coinciding with the opening of this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Dupeaux pulls the rug out from under us in the first big scene, which involves a very long walk-and-talk between Willy (Raphael Cunard) and David (Louis Garrel), two friends strolling through the quiet countryside and a girl named Florence. Talking to (Léa Seydoux) with whom David wants to set Willy up. But wait a minute: Willie keeps looking at the camera, and David keeps telling him to stop saying inappropriate things.
Willy and David are not actually two old friends, but actors playing them in a movie. The same goes for Florence and her father, Guillaume (Vincent Linden), who can barely get through their own scene before losing faith not only in their feigned romance, but in movies in general. That is, until she gets a call from her agent telling her that Paul Thomas Anderson wants to cast her in his latest feature.
The PTA quickly becomes a running gag. Second Act – a sign that some Hollywood directors still hold sway over French actors, especially those disillusioned with their industry. Other names are dropped, including Mel Gibson’s during a hilarious tirade of Willie’s, while the four French stars seem to overplay themselves a bit: Seydoux is a spoiled starlet who has lost her talent. Not sure. Surround yourself with seductive intellectuals who hide their egos behind good manners; Lyndon is a seasoned veteran with no patience for amateurs. And Coinard is an oddly funny newcomer whose working-class origins and rhetoric set him apart from the pack.
They all eventually meet at a roadside restaurant called The Second Act, where they discuss some more between their roles in the film being made and the actors in the film. At some point, a nervous waiter (Manuel Guillot) steps in to serve them wine, and his inability to pour a glass without spilling it all over the place becomes another gag that soon turns horribly sour. .
Or has it? Dupieux fools us again, with a new twist in which the actors transform into another set of actors who are no longer playing themselves. There’s also a director in the form of an AI avatar on a laptop, who robotically comments on their work, deducting pay from cast members who don’t perform well.
Is this the future of filmmaking? And more than that: is it necessarily worse than a bunch of narcissistic French stars having panic attacks and ego trips on set? Dupeaux doesn’t give us his answer, and like his other films, it ends without a real ending.
What’s different this time is that its cast – including the charismatic Couinard, who also headlined Yank – say some very revocable things that may or may not be the director’s own ideas, and which in any case are quickly lost in the arthouse metaverse he’s concocted here. The medium clearly counts for more than the former French Touch DJ’s message: it’s cinema as a massive turntable where you can use remixes, scratches and sample concepts to create your own unique sound.
In this context, Second Act Probably his strongest film to date, and certainly the first to spark any controversy. Not only is the script cleverly written, but so is the cinematography, which includes four epically long tracking shots, and the editing, which gets all the jokes just right. The fact that Dupeix did it all by himself certainly deserves some praise.
The director also shows a real knack for making some of France’s biggest current talents even funnier than before, most notably Sedoux, who has one of the film’s most laugh-out-loud moments during a phone call with his mother. Presenting one of There’s probably nothing Dupuis can do at this point, except, perhaps, try to make a plain old ordinary movie – not that he ever wants to.
Credit : www.hollywoodreporter.com