Deerskin: A Jaqueta de Couro de Cervo

In a role that was made for Jean Dujardin, he acts like he has been doing this for a long time. By 'this' I mean executing an eccentric project that is about to take over his life and muddle his relationship with the world. And by 'the world' I mean the sorry village that his Georges character travels to after buying a vintage jacket made of 100% deerskin which also marks his obsession with it, something that both induces laughter in its audience and also highlights the crazy, primal nature of obsessive compulsion characterized by depression, loneliness, and unconditional enmity against the humankind. I have no words to describe the virulent turn Le daim (Deerskin) takes as Georges laughingly has his way by conspiring with himself to take forward his obsession with his deerskin jacket, which I should add is 'killer style' in his own words. Whether it is the inflated price that he pays for the second-hand jacket or the newfound skill of videography or mistaking a film editor with a creditor, Le daim has been written in a way that is guaranteed to make you laugh every five minutes. The outlandish plot, accentuated by terrific performances by Dujardin and Adele Haenel (who acts with her face and that's enough) and also by the peculiar style of referral writing (where the aftermath of an event in a scene is shown in the following one or the one after that) by director-writer Quentin Dupieux makes this comedy crime drama a blast experience. I can't recommend it more and I am definitely going to be watching more of Dupieux's work. Bravo! TN.

(Watched and reviewed at its India premiere at the 21st MAMI Mumbai Film Festival.)

Well, that was a neat, little, indie experimental film and now I'll be sure not to wear a jacket in France.

The trailer calls this "Wickedly Funny." I did not laugh once, or recognize any humor in this movie. For me, this was a very short film about a man extremely ill and his continual journey into the abyss while he still grasps for more and more.

Georges is a man who's left everything behind to pursue...unclear, but what is known: he sought out a used deerskin jacket he wildly paid too much for and because of that, the seller throws in a video camera. Georges lands at a hotel and the cons are on. He's simultaneously "making a film" and is aware his jacket wants him all to its lonesome. At any cost.

Very well shot, acted, intense, unpredictable and enormously original, I would recommend this very quick gem just to see a different kind of "protagonist." A very ill one.

***

Final thoughts: I hadn't known this was going to become a horror. Technically, it's not, but it does get violent and gory integral to the plot.

What a strange movie, not sure everybody will enjoy this kind of story. But if you like a bit of bizarre then Le Daim (or Deerskin) is certainly worth watching. I did enjoy it and so did my American wife, so it's not necessary only for French people. Jean Dujardin proves he can play something else than in is award winning movie The Artist. There are basically only two actors that matter in Deerskin, Jean Dujardin and Adèle Haenel, and they both did a very good job. The complicity between both characters was what made this movie entertaining, plus the oddly strange monologues between a man and his jacket. I wasn't sure about this movie before watching it but I'm glad I watched it. Give it a go if you're not afraid of something completely different.

It is easy to see it as a dark comedy. As a parable, in same measure. As an eccentric story, admirable served by Jean Dujardin.

In fact, its realism represents the main virtue.

A jacket, its owner, their dialogue and a simple sort of friendship with a young waitress. And the result of this relation , the violent side of his bizarre desire and the perfect end .

A film demanding the honesty from viewer , because the absurd situations are just pieces of coherent large puzzle , reminding ordinary temptations animating near reality.

Who knows what goes through the mind of a recently separated middle aged man, but if you want an insight into one such gentleman, one with a suede fetish (haven't we all in various interpretations of that word), a penchant for jacket genocide and an ever so slight psychological, psychopathic derangement, then look no further. Jean Dujardin plays an aging buck who impulsively scalps his way through events with the edited financial assistance of the ever elegant Adèle Haenel. Extremely gamy, an acquired taste perhaps.