Reality
Director: Quentin Dupieux
Rating: N/A
Release Date: May 1, 2015 (VOD and IFC Center)
Quentin Dupieux is known for his subversive films that deconstruct the whole movie experience, from the art of filmmaking to the act of actually watching films, to varying degrees of success. Reality fits well alongside the rest of Dupieux’s filmography, for better or worse. If you’ve seen Dupieux’s films in the past (Rubber, Wrong, etc.) and didn’t care for them, you won’t feel differently about Reality. However, fans of the director will feel at home with the film.
Reality features a skewered narrative perspective in which we primarily follow Jason (Alain Chabat), a cooking show cameraman who dreams of filming a horror film involving killer TVs. A rich film producer Bob Marshall (Jonathan Lambert) agrees to fund the film, but on one condition: Jason must find cinema’s perfect scream in 48 hours. As Jason frantically searches for the right scream, he descends into a twisted nightmare that resembles reality… unless the nightmare itself really is reality.
Interspersed in Jason’s search are various subplots, including the cooking show host’s (Jon Heder) imaginary eczema, Bob Marshall’s problems with Zog (John Glover), another filmmaker he’s financing who wastes film on mundane activities, Jason’s wife Alice’s (Elodie Bouchez) psychiatric meetings with elementary school principal Henri (Eric Wareheim), who himself is struggling to deal with a secret, and Reality (Kyla Kenedy), a student at Henri’s school who can see everything and is being filmed by Zog. It’s confusing, messy, intertwined, and I loved it all.
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The reason why is due to the interrelationship Dupieux is creating between himself and his audience, himself and his film, the film and the audience, and the characters and audience. Each character is a viewer of another character’s life and secrets, yet are unaware that they are being watched, creating the dichotomy of being both subject and viewer. While defining what is or isn’t real is the purpose of films like Inception, the importance isn’t so much drawn to the “what” in Reality; rather, the film is more interested in “why” reality isn’t real. It’s all perspective and perception, and Reality is able to embody those two elements within each of its various characters.
Reality, much like the rest of Dupieux’s other films, will be eaten up by crowds that love to digest postmodern art, as well as cinephiles that love to deconstruct metafictional and avant-garde films. While it’s not as coy and slick as Rubber, Reality may be Dupieux’s best film in recent years. Again, it may not convince those who weren’t mesmerized by past Dupieux films, but will be appreciated by the right audiences.