29/10/2024 - Stefan Liberski is back with a melancholy comedy carried by a painter who’s so conceptual he’s forgotten his sense of style, the meaning of art, and potentially the meaning of life, too

Having devoted himself to literature these past ten years, multi-faceted artist Stefan Liberski is making his return to the film world where he distinguished himself with his first feature film, Bunker Paradise [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Stefan Liberski
film profile], as well as with Baby Balloon [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Tokyo Fiancée [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the latter adapted from an Amélie Nothomb novel. In Art or Fart? [+see also:
trailer
interview: Stefan Liberski
film profile], presented in a world premiere in Rome Film Fest and hitting French cinemas tomorrow, 30 October, courtesy of KMBO, and Belgian cinemas on 13 November via O’Brother Distribution, the director paints a portrait that’s funny but also equal parts absurd and melancholy about a man who’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown without even knowing it, a conceptual artist in search of meaning, or rather lost in an excess of meaning and interpretation.

"Are you a painter?" "It’s not quite as simple as that." For Jean-Yves Machond, being a painter is first and foremost a performance. Having packed away his paintbrushes in favour of teaching, Machond is looking for a new start after resigning and surrendering the keys to his Brussels home. It’s been a while since he rocked the small world of contemporary art by exhibiting empty rooms – empty in a literal sense but not empty conceptually. But how can a person reinvent themselves when they’ve made nothingness their trademark? Having stripped back meaning to the extreme, Machond decides to reconnect with the ancestral act of painting. So he settles himself on the cliff where Monet painted, he treats himself to Bernard Buffet’s smock, and he gazes into the distance. But inspiration fails him. It’s only by crossing paths with other painters, preferably on Sundays, that his taste for art and, ultimately, life is eventually renewed.

Stefan Liberski thought up Art or Fart? in league with Benoît Poelvoorde who was involved from the very outset in this project, which is loosely based on Jean-Philippe Delhomme’s La Dilution de l’Artiste. As a result, the actor is central to this comedy which reflects as much upon the art world as upon our relationship with life, which always seems to be experienced through our TVs of late, as if each and every experience can only truly be experienced if they’re narrated to us or reconceptualised. And it’s into this search for real connection that Machond is thrust, without even realising it in the first instance. So much so that he finds himself distracted by Cécile, a Parisian gallery owner who’s motivated by her own neuroses. Ultimately, it’s by getting closer to simpler people who have both feet anchored firmly to the ground that Machond understands what really moves him. To stand alongside Benoît Poelvoorde, Liberski has called upon a learned assembly of actors and actresses hailing from different worlds, perhaps too different at times. Camille Cottin, Gustave Kervern and François Damiens all gravitate towards him, each in their very own inimitable style. The desire for the unusual often wins out over disorder or emotion, so much so that the audience, like Machond, sometimes wonders what the point of it all is. There’s a raft of appealing ideas punctuating the story, like the artist who self-interviews to build up his own legend, but by setting off in all different directions, as per its cast, the film sometimes loses us, and potentially the empathy we might feel for Machond.

Produced in Belgium by Artemis Productions in co-production with Le Bureau Films in France, Art or Fart? is sold worldwide by The Bureau Sales.

(Translated from French)