La alta sociedad

Binoche drags this movie down. Most of the other participants, especially Luchini, manage to actually be funny, while she does a tone-deaf pantomime and kind of walks all over everyone else whenever she's in a scene. The misanthropy that permeated 'Li'l Quinquin' is also present here, with Dumont seeming to say that everywhere you turn, you run into idiots. The poor are barely human at all, the middle class is a bunch of bumbling idiots, while the "upper" class is delusional and degenerate. Some of the cinematography is quite beautiful, with an almost 3D quality to it.

All the humor is lost in translation. If your using subtitles give this one a miss. It seems extremely gory in places. I watch a lot of films from all over the world using subtitles and I honestly can't tell if this one is good or not.

I've not seen any other films by Bruno Dumont, so I don't know how typical this is, but it's the strangest film I've seen for a while.

Whether one finds it funny or not I guess will be down to personal taste, but mostly I found the quiet humour to be appropriate to the style, with only Binoche's over-the-top performance striking a jarring note. Many of the cast (the fat detective in particular) were clearly having a great time, and the mix of serious issues and disparate characters worked well for me.

The cinematography was also great and, although there were many loose ends and perhaps 20-30 minutes too much in the running time, there was enough plot and a fairly satisfying resolution. Just go with it.

Only French can do a movie like this !

Cast is brilliant !

It's a dark comedy, quite absurd and... very different !

The locations are a magnificent part of France !

An extremely overweight detective and his way smarter right hand side comes to Slack By in 1910 to investigate why burgoise tourists traceless disappears. Ma Loute is the son of a fisherman which falls in love with one of the tourist - a girl dressed like a boy.

More you don't need to know about "Ma Loute" or "Slack Bay". What appears is a very strange and beautiful movie, which lets the viewer decide weather you find the story appealing or not.

It's the first movie I watch made by Bruno Dumont, and I've now put the rest up on my watchlist.

It's quirky, strange, gross and funny. I thought of Ettore Scolas "Ugly, dirty and bad" and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's films, and maybe with a touch of Wes Anderson.

It certainly will not be everyone's cup of tea, but I love such a gem. I'm not sure what Dumont wants to tell, but it sure is a treat.