Daaaaaalí!
There are some clichés involved in the wiseass anti-biopic, “Daaaaaalí!,” a light hearted mockery of British biopics, in this case, focused on the story of the surrealist indeed a story that seems impossible to tell in conventional terms. As is often said, artists and art have only been able to give life to one masterpiece throughout their entire career themselves. Certainly yes, and who cares?
The 70+ minute long extremely dull documentary does feature one humorous incident where a manic journalist chases around several actors portraying Dali’s different stages of life and never ceases to seek comments from him. Caught up in these superficial ideals, he (a variety of actors) repeatedly agrees to be interviewed by the eager-to-be-pleased Judith (Anaïs Demoustier). Then again he or she gets distracted. And so does writer and director Quentin Dupieux (‘Yannick’) who moves with his usual zooming camera around the large narcissistic face of Dalí.
“Daaaaaaaali!” attempts to enlist the audiences to stay engrossed despite the fact that the story frequently jolts backward in time and space because there is no unity in the narrative, and there are also nightmares in between that contain the legendary surrealist painter Dali talking about or working on his paintings. The movie starts with a hotel scene. Dalí (Édouard Baer) strides down a corridor to rendezvous with Judith. It’s a shame about the terrible structure as the man stumbles about. He gestures helplessly with a cane and takes forever to reach his destination. It is the same as the cliché of Lancelot’s slinky charge towards the castle in some comedy about King Arthur. It’s not just the structure that’s not up to par for Dalí, it’s the interview location as well. Sparkling water? Absolutely not. Still water, quite the contrary. One hour? Make it fifteen instead. It is actually the interview that gets interrupted before it commences; no tapes are running when Dali is present, which seems to be essential.
Dalí seems to be globe trotting the entire movie while Judith chases him, though at some points it feels like either the universe, or Dalí’s imagination portrays him as if she is hounding him to no end. Dark dreams and eerie premonitions lead to the conclusion that perhaps Dalí might want to confer with Judith. He practically rolls his eyes at such a suggestion for the most part. Not surprisingly, a few symbols are practically as iconic as the artistic cliches that are synonymous to Dali’s art. For example, there’s a priest (Éric Naggar) telling about his dream in which there is a cowboy on a killing spree, a visit to the underworld, and a camel galloping through the desert. Retrospectively, Les Liaisons Dangereuses patron Dalí (Gilles Lellouche) disregards the whole episode, turning and stating “Till next time” backwards. However, in recent years, Dalí was often seen in a wheelchair strolling on the terrace surrounding the southern bungalow depicted by Didier Flamand. But even this has some meaning too but one would wonder how something so plain could torment Dalí all these years.
Judith’s obsession with appealing to Dalí is fascinating and sheds more light towards who he is rather than this or any other great artist. She tries every approach she can think of that can tantalize the recipient: one, two, no, rather film studio, a producer (Romain Duris), perhaps a make up artist, a new outfit etc.
For Dalí (Jonathan Cohen and also Pio Marmaï), all of this appears to be normal and correct. Whom does I’ll casually nurture I’ll opt as he is in any room. And that’s Dalí’s world while Judith is around him orbiting. Of course, these are rather dull observations; however, one would find them far more irritating were it not for Dupieux’s extraordinary ability to outpace our expectations.
At one point in the scene, toy dogs fall out of the window as hail storms outside Dalí’s window. Delighted, Dalí turns to Judith and says, “Call me back later, please,” after ominously warning her to quit annoying him. In another, Judith’s roast-peddling producer tries to stab one with his meat fork and then makes insults towards Judith concerning her looks. In both scenes, the world of Dalí appears as bland and as uninteresting as one could expect if one were to care less about Dali’s type and more about thumbnail drafts of his life. That’s Dalí universal, human-sized, and sound clean cut and so forth. Or, so to speak, the joke that the whole point of “Daaaaaalí!” focuses on is.
The fans of Dupieux, who have understood the genius of “Daaaaaalí!” also understand that the secret of the success of this odious film is the fact that the author has the skill of swiftly and easily pitching the audience to be lulled, even if it means for the audience to be drawn against their will. It’s not even the fact that he tells particularly amusing jokes, or that his cast does something startling or desirable enough that you forget that they did pull the rug from under you just seconds earlier in almost the same fashion.
Instead, Dupieux is also quite the visual storyteller and can smoothly fill out the camera. He is more than capable of coming up with scenarios for the scenes which has resulted in his more recent comedies having a twisted sense of style that fits well with their anti climactic and self indulgent humor. That works for “Daaaaaalí” quite well since it is essentially a Funhouse which is designed to spew out partial representations of some brilliant mastermind. Consequently, the most comical aspect of “Daaaaalí!” is observing how many times Dupieux is able to convince you that he will do one thing when he is definitely going to do another. It is not an elegant trick, yet Dupieux’s devotion to senseless anti jokes is still quite appealing.
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