French absurdist Quentin Dupieux, also known as Mr. Oizo in the music sphere, emerging with his mega-single FLAT BEAT circa the millennium, he is a computer wiz adept in sampling an aleatory style of electronic beats and strains. Starting from directing music videos, his sideline diet of filmmaking has a consistent output since NONFILM (2002), with sui generis quirks like RUBBER (2010) and WRONG (2012), DEERSKIN is his eighth feature, debuted in the Directors’ Fornight at Cannes, it is by far his most hyped one, not least by the headliners of Jean Dujardin and Adèle Haenel.
Dujardin plays Georges, a middle-aged man shells out thousands of euros to acquire a vintage made-in-Italy deerskin jacket, then fetches up in a small village in France, spurned by his wife and with his credit card blocked by the bank, he rubs elbows with the local barmaid and amateur montage editor Denise (Haenel) by posing as a movie director, from whom he solicits financial support and to whom he consigns the task of editing his outstanding project.
Wielding his camcorder to sustain the posture of film-making, Georges is inexplicably consumed by an undue affinity with the deerskin jacket, to the point he even starts a conversation with it, though Dupieux ascertains us that it derives from Georges’ own figment. After being apprised that his dearest jacket’s sole wish is to be the only jacket in the world, George buckles down with the impossible mission to annihilate all the other jackets.
Starting with tricking others to give away their jackets and abjure that they will never jackets again, Georges’ enterprise soon escalates into a merciless killing spree, many an innocent, clueless jacket-wear in the vicinity is perished by a sharpened fan’s vane, and many more jackets are interred to be pushing up daisies. Documented in the video cassettes, the grisly contents perversely intrigue Denise, and things dissolve into a folie à deux, and Georges’ wacky ritual is complete when his entire outfit (jacket, hat, shoes and trousers, in a sequential order) goes echt deerskin, however, comeuppance assaults like a potshot (an object lesson: don’t provoke or hurt any creepy, silent, staring teenager), but as idiosyncratic as in any other Dupieux’s works, Georges’ mantle is candidly assumed by his natural protégée.
As succinct as Dupieux’s other films, the 77-minute DEERSKIN refines the lonesome, narcissistic personal crisis with conceivable elation and bemusement, even the violence is drenched in utter absurdity and sheer nonchalance, what’s more, Dupieux knows all too well not to overstay his welcome in wallowing in the non sequitur and ludicrousness, this French Quentin (there is a knowing commentary on Tarantino’s PULP FICTION too) might just as well become a full-bore trend-bucker as a purveyor of whimsical wheezes.
referential entries: Alice Lowe’s PREVENGE (2016, 6.0/10); Peter Strickland’s IN FABRIC (2018, 6.8/10); Bruno Dumont’s LI’L QUINQUIN (2014, 7.0/10).
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