Bruno Dumont’s Bonkers Sci-Fi Satire – The Hollywood Reporter

Brandon Vlieghe in ‘L’ Empire’

Tessalit Productions

Out of the various films you would think about rising from the thoughts of French auteur Bruno Dumont, a Star Wars parody was in all probability someplace on the backside of the record.

And but it’s been a while for the reason that Cannes Grand Jury Prize laureate, who broke out within the late 90s with viscerally stylized, hard-hitting works of Gallic realism like The Lifetime of Jesus and Humanity, has strayed removed from his gritty roots in the direction of a model of accentuated arthouse satire.

His newest effort, the sci-fi farce The Empire (L’Empire), undoubtedly suits the latter mould, though it’s loaded with sufficient VFX, mild saber battles, spacecrafts and prophecies to present George Lucas a run for his cash. That’s, if Lucas determined to set the following Star Wars in a sleepy northern French metropolis, used an area mechanic to play one of many leads and tossed in just a few flagrant intercourse scenes, in addition to the 2 bumbling cops from Li’l Quinquin (Dumont’s 2014 TV collection that mocked self-serious police dramas like True Detective).

Within the press notes, the director claims The Empire is meant to be a prequel to The Lifetime of Jesus. That looks as if a serious stretch, though it does function among the identical beautiful landscapes and spectacular widescreen pictures, this time courtesy of DP David Chambille (who shot Dumont’s previous few options). The distinction right here is that these landscapes are sometimes interrupted by the arrival of an enormous floating ship that appears precisely just like the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris and homes a strong interstellar Queen, showing within the type of a hologram, performed by Name My Agent’s Camille Cottin.

Are you a bit thrown off? Nicely good, as a result of Dumont isn’t attempting to make something actual or plausible. That’s just about been his modus operandi for a decade now, together with his current output consisting of two nutso Joan of Arc biopics, a goofy belle époque homicide thriller known as Slack Bay and the fashionable media satire France, which was the tamest of the bunch.

As with these movies, the issue with The Empire is that it’s so over-the-top that it may typically be a pressure to take a seat by, except you occur to share Dumont’s very offbeat humorousness. Nonetheless, there are just a few good gags on this one, plus loads of trippy, artfully rendered VFX by Hugues Namur (Asterix & Obelix: The Center Kingdom), who fuses historic French structure, together with the whole Chateau de Versailles, with futuristic know-how to create his intergalactic fleet.

As for the plot, identical to in Star Wars it entails forces of fine and evil. Good is represented by the church (there’s all the time been a mystical facet to Dumont’s work) and evil by the monarchy, with veteran Fabrice Luchini enjoying a Darth Vader-like determine known as Belzébuth. The latter is wearing a court docket jester’s costume that appears like a cast-off from Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. In a single scene, Luchini sits on the throne in his floating citadel and watches what appears like an enormous, gyrating butt dance round to a three-piece jazz band.

Again on Earth within the seaside metropolis of Boulogne-sur-Mer, the epic battle facilities round a baby named Freddy, whom each good and evil imagine is a future king known as the Margat. His father, Jony (Brandon Vlieghe), has been elevating him to service Belzébuth, and he’s aided by the very extraterrestrial-like newcomer Line (Lina Khoudri). However their plans are thwarted by Jane (Anamaria Vartolomei from Taking place), a Princess Lea wearing a bikini and accompanied by a insurgent (Julien Manier) who goes round city decapitating individuals together with his mild sword.

The motion is so deadpan absurd, and the performing so exaggerated when it’s not completely flat, that it appears to be lampooning the whole Star Wars franchise in its deliberate ineptness. By stripping these movies right down to the naked minimal of their plot factors and inserting just a few visible nods to different current sci-fi hits, resembling Dune and Arrival, Dumont reminds us that these billion-dollar Hollywood behemoths will be simplistic and even foolish undertakings once you take away the costly packaging they arrive in.

The Empire is mild years away from the works of Lucasfilm, and but once you take a step again and look previous all of the bizarre northern Frenchiness, it may really feel fairly shut at occasions. It’s too dangerous, then, that Dumont couldn’t make one thing extra entertaining in order that the satire would go down easily.

Like his different current movies, this one isn’t straightforward to take a seat by, although it’s undoubtedly unique and, per customized, impeccably made. You’ll be able to accuse Dumont of many issues, together with testing the viewer’s persistence, however not less than he hasn’t bought out but and gone over to the darkish facet.