Last year, in France, candidates for a master’s degree in philosophy struggled to answer a thorny question: does art teach us anything? You have four hours. Quentin Dupieux dissects the topic in an hour and 20 minutes. Pungent and concise as always, the director returns with his thirteenth film, nine months after the release of Yannick. Do you remember? A disgruntled spectator (Raphaël Quenard) interrupts a theater performance to express his boredom and dissatisfaction with the performers who have failed in their mission to entertain him. This time the roles are reversed. The male revelation of the 2024 César Awards plays the actor. To be precise: a fast-rising movie star. Any reference to real events and/or real existing people… Should excite viewers of the opening film of the 77th Cannes Film Festival.
After the controversy Jeanne du Barry Of Maïwennfor Cannes film fans comes a session of humor corrosive. To continue his meta-exploration and question himself about art, its reception and its background, Quentin Dupieux turns his gaze to the making of a film with a mediocre screenplay: Florence (Léa Seydoux) loves David (Louis Garrel). David doesn’t love Florence. However, she wants to introduce him to her father, Guillaume (Vincent Lindon). To get out of this situation, David introduces her to her friend Willy (Raphaël Quenard), in the hope that he will seduce her. A classic scenario for a repetitive French comedy? Even more cynical: the story is imagined by an artificial intelligence, so we witness the chaotic shooting of the «first film written and directed by an AI». A tyrannical AI, naturally devoid of nuance, which rejects all sensitive suggestions from interpreters: “Your personal opinion is not taken into account.”
A quartet at the top
The interest of the film lies not so much in its play of reflections or in its conventional back and forth between fiction and reality, but rather in its quartet of actors. Three of them are making their debut in Quentin Dupieux’s unconventional universe: Léa Seydoux, Louis Garrel and Vincent Lindon. The first tries its hand at pure comedy and shines. Self-irony she doesn’t miss it, especially in the scene where, overwhelmed by her partners’ macho ego and in the throes of a nervous breakdown, she is humiliated on the phone by her parents who despise her choice of a career in cinema. Amidst the chaos, she presents herself as a professional and pragmatic actress. She sulks easily, always lucid.
In another register, Vincent Lindon laughs at himself without batting an eyelid. His political and committed tirades in his films are well known and appreciated Stéphane Brizéand the roles of angry trade unionist, burnout manager or, more recently, incorruptible director of the French Customs Agency thanks to the phenomenon series D’Argent et de Sang. In Le Deuxième Actewe discover him in the role of a unpleasant actor, disenchanted and self-centered, forced to play a banker. He, to whom Le Monde had attributed presidential ambitions in an article published last February, now he mocks the fiery rhetoric for which he is famous. The actor abandons the set and launches into a ferocious satire on the vanity of cinema in the face of the horrors that devastate the world. «Who cares about love stories? Will you continue acting as if nothing had happened? It’s almost the end of humanity and you want to continue pretending to be my daughter in an art film?”, apostrophizes Léa Seydoux, who later replies that she never manages to do a complete take “because of her tics nervous.” The duo hits the mark.
One glass too many
Mirroring each other, David and Willy bicker like two friends in perpetual disagreement. Louis Garrelin a long brown raincoat, plays a snobbish and charming philosopher, while Raphaël Quenard, with a red down jacket, plays a new figure of a friendly troublemaker. The four actors find themselves in a restaurant immersed in the countryside to shoot a scene. What do they have in common? They question the times we live in, cancel culture, society and the evolution of cinema with the same crassness and irreverence with which they express their desires and ambitions. Gathered around a table, they give free rein to their worst flaws and list narcissistic considerations about cinema, careers and the public. “You weren’t even born when I was already making five films a year,” Guillaume (Vincent Lindon) says ironically to Willy (Raphaël Quenard).
The low blows follow one another under the eyes of a fifth protagonist, who has so far kept a low profile. Manuel Guillot, the only one of the cast unknown to the general public, plays Stéphane, a feverish extra in the throes of a stress attack. For ten years he has dreamed of this moment: making cinema. And now he is on set. His scene? He has to pour a glass of Burgundy for the four guests. But here’s the problem. Gripped by anxiety, his hand trembles. The tests were useless. The sketch becomes a drama. Quentin Dupieux transforms a comic sequence into a lively reflection on the condition of extras and the consideration in which they are held by big names.
«Everything is said»
«Laughing continuously, without seeing the other side of things, is very complicated», he confided to us on the sidelines of the release of Yannick. «Even more so in cinema. A movie that promises you, “You’ll have fun, buddy,” is already suspect. Unless there’s a genius behind it. Otherwise, banality lurks. With what we’re experiencing nowadays, you can’t just resort to humor. […] I talk about it like it’s a science, like I’m a veteran, but bringing a little emotion all in all is new to me. I’m a beginner on the subject.”
With his sharp writing, his biting humor and his conscious self-criticism, Le Deuxième Acte it’s a delightful account of the cinema that tells the story of cinema. To the point that the director did not deem it necessary to say more with a promotional campaign: «This film, very talkative, says with carefully chosen words, everything I want to say, and already contains an extremely clear analysis», reads his statement press. «I therefore believe that it would be useless to listen to a director and his actors paraphrase a film in which everything is said and commented on in real time. Le Deuxième Acte it hides absolutely nothing.” And it arrives at the right time to open the Cannes Film Festival, led by a cinema that is calling itself into question.
