Anaïs Demoustier

Gilles Lellouche

Édouard Baer

Jonathan Cohen

Pio Marmaï

Didier Flamand

Romain Duris

Agnès Hurstel

Angélique Pleau

Jérôme Niel

Marc Fraize

Matthias Girbig

Nicolas Carpentier

Boris Gillot

Marie Bunel

Hakim Jemili

Martial Rollin

Philippe Dusseau

Ken Samuels

Éric Naggar

Tom Dingler

Jean-Marie Winling

Catherine Schaub-Abkarian

Laurent Nicolas

Hervé Pauchon

Victor Assié

Johann Dionnet

Cécile Garcia-Fogel

Sandrine Blancke

Max Chabat

Bernard le Boru

Philippe Caulier

Thomas Bangalter

Marine Albert

Jérémy Margallé

Marion Josse

Youenn Bouilly

Antoine Dubois

Léa Audouin

Constantin Galy-Nadal

Charlotte Brosseau

Manuel Tritschler

Quentin Dupieux

Guillaume Le Braz

Camille Cariou

Isabelle Pannetier

Joan Le Boru

Renaud Garnier

Mathieu Verhaeghe

Thomas Verhaeghe

Benjamin Vasseur

Ferdinand Godard

Gadou Naudin

Hugo Manuelli

Estelle Piget

Julien Duverger

Esther Fouchard

Christine Reymond-Laruinaz

Christophe Belena

Piotr Smorawski

Stéphane Avenard

Antoine Citrinot

Marine Guerry

Christian Alzieu

Roxane Chorin

Lionel Guerrini

Romain Marietti

Marine Dupont

Théodore Julia

Manjeet Sannan

Élie Geroudet

Clémentine Odion

Fabien Napoli

Lucie Colombié

Victorien Lamotte

Arnaud Tournaire

Jules Laurin

Louis Naudin

Alexis Place

Comedy

Fantasy

Drama

Daaaaaalí !

Atelier de Production

France 3 Cinéma

France

Brent Marchant

Biopics are among the most common films being made these days. Some are great, some are decent, and others are more than a little conventional, following rote formats so meticulously that they can turn out shallow or dull. But, when it comes to telling the story of someone wholly unconventional, someone larger than life and the embodiment of surrealistic sensibilities, the tried and true simply won’t work. And that’s certainly the case with enigmatic artist Salvador Dalí, whose unusual paintings nearly always defied description and classification. He was also a shameless self-promoter with an ego the size of the planet and a capricious personality as eccentric as his creations. He often spoke about himself in the third person and spouted statements that required those skilled in the cryptic arts to decipher. So, with a subject like this, a formula biography simply would not work. Fortunately, that’s precisely the thinking that writer-director Quentin Dupieux employed in coming up with this outrageously funny, eminently bizarre offering about a one-of-a-kind individual. In many ways, the film is a cinematic experiment in storytelling, enlivening its narrative in a manner as surreal as one of Dalí’s works. It’s rarely grounded in the straightforward, taking on dream-like qualities with running jokes, repeated but altered sequences and recurring characters that intertwine with one another in unexpected, truly out-there ways. The picture loosely follows the efforts of an aspiring journalist (Anaïs Demoustier) to secure an interview with her subject but who is routinely met with unrealistic, unforeseen obstacles (nearly always whimsically implemented by Dalí himself) in her attempts to pull it off. And, as the movie unfolds, it becomes impossible to follow any sense of reason in trying to figure out what’s going on and where it might be headed (so don’t even try). Instead, just sit back and enjoy the absurdity of it all – the very same attitude that one needs to employ when gazing upon one of the artist’s paintings. This highly fitting approach to telling Dalí’s story works brilliantly, especially coming from a filmmaker who has his own offbeat sensibilities about art, as seen in such prior releases as “Deerskin” (2019) and “Smoking Causes Coughing” 2022). In fact, “Daaaaaalí!” is so quirky and breaks the mold in so many ways that it even features five different actors (Edouard Baer, Jonathan Cohen, Gilles Lellouche, Pio Marmaï and Didier Flamand) portraying the protagonist. And, to his credit, the director thankfully keeps the runtime short at 1:18:00 so as not to overstay his welcome and let the innate joke become tiresome. Still, some might find this a frustrating offering to watch, but, if you’re willing to suspend logic and convention (as you’re clearly supposed to do), you’re likely to find that this hilarious little gem will tickle your funny bone in myriad, unanticipated ways. After all, if the film’s subject defies easy categorization, the last thing a director should do is needlessly confine him to a claustrophobic little box. And, fortunately, that’s exactly the pitfall this release successfully manages to avoid.

Français

Daaaaaalí!

DAAAAAALÍ! | Official Trailer | In Select Theaters October 4

Trailer (English Subs)