The films of French filmmaker Quentin Dupieux are at their best when they combine his penchant for ludicrous but simple what-if scenarios, with his perceptive eye for humor in everyday life and banal interactions. He would probably hate his cinema to be pinned down in this way: though he has proven that he can subscribe to straightforward storytelling with “Deerskin” (which premieres at Cannes in 2019) and “Incredible But True” (Berlinale 2022), the French director and absurdist also enjoys leaving the demands of logical plot developments behind in favor of a freer style. Centered on two simple-minded friends whose thought processes proved utterly incoherent, “Mandibles” (2020) was as random as a film with a plot could be, the characters’ discovery of a giant fly never leading them to any kind of expected, logical scenario. In “Smoking Causes Coughing,” Dupieux similarly sets up a high-concept situation only to undermine the dramatic expectations it entails and revel in the awkwardness left in their place.
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The film opens with a team of avengers dressed up in colorful Power Rangers-esque outfits as they attack an enemy: a giant turtle standing on its hind legs. Dupieux here does us the courtesy of indulging in a perhaps not groundbreaking, but always pleasurable comedy about low-fi costumes and rudimentary fighting skills souped-up with sound FX. But even in his sci-fi scenarios, the director never loses sight of our cruel reality: here, the vigilantes defeat their enemy by each targeting him with a powerful dose of one of the components of cigarettes — they are the Tobacco Force. When the monster is vanquished, he does not disappear in a ray of light or vanish in smoke, but explodes, his entrails flying around and his blood spraying everyone in the vicinity. It’s a gruesome image but the winning team are utterly unfazed, fist-pumping the air and high fiving each other in a moment of sinister glee that recalls Paul Verhoeven’s “Starship Troopers.”
It’s a delightfully shoddy takedown of the violence at the core of superhero stories, one that becomes even funnier once the members of the Tobacco Force remove their helmets, revealing a cast of prestigious French actors whose careers usually see them lightyears away from anything resembling the kind of silly, childish action movies being parodied here. “Smoking Causes Coughing” could in fact be described as the “Oppenheimer” of French cinema: Gilles Lellouche, Anaïs Demoustier, Vincent Lacoste, Oulaya Amamra, as well as emerging talent Jean-Pascal Zadi (the highlight from Michel Hazanavicius’ Cannes opener “Final Cut”) make up the team of heroes, but as the film moves into a more unpredictable, less linear territory, we also get to see Doria Tillier, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Blanche Gardin, Benoît Poelvoorde and many more. One of the main appeals of Dupieux’s films is the chance to see actors of a high caliber play parodically banal people who use extremely colloquial language, their fame and sheer talent helping to lovingly bring out the vapidity of common French conversation and speaking habits.
Following this very silly and entertaining opening, the film changes gear when the Tobacco Force are told by their boss (a rat puppet voiced by “Incredible But True” actor Alain Chabat), who contacts them via video, to go on a week-long retreat together in the hopes of consolidating the group’s fraying cohesion. These action men and women are therefore forced into idleness and we are regaled with their inane thoughts, all the funnier for being delivered with the (misplaced) confidence and self-belief that befit superheroes. Set around an unimpressive lake, this part of the film does lose some steam/smoke quite quickly, the characters’ dialogue and behaviors not evolving against a clear background of realism like they do in Dupieux’s other films mentioned above. This is why, when “Smoking Causes Coughing” moves away from the Tobacco Force to adopt an anthology format, the break does not feel fatal.
In fact, it revitalizes the film. Sitting around with nothing to do (though still wearing their action uniforms, for some reason), the members of the team begin telling each other scary stories — stories that are all set in the recognizable real world. The first, involving a “thinking helmet” and a beach umbrella, is more conceptually “elevated” than the second, a gorier, more absurd number, but both are satisfying and darkly comic. The third, extremely short story, told by a random little girl whose apparition is left unexplained, lightly and unpretentiously brings home the point that real life is much scarier than anything in the movies.
The anthology format suits Dupieux so well that it is a wonder he hasn’t adopted it before. Both easily amused and easily bored, the French director has proven time and time again that he does not need a lot of time, money, or even a long and complicated story to make truly unique films that often have something to say, but also know how to have fun. Although “Smoking Causes Coughing” isn’t as substantial or funny as some of his other films, it remains a breath of fresh air and contains enough moments of invention and flawless comedy to amuse and charm, particularly at a festival that has sorely lacked laughs so far. [B]
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