After the stripper Oranges Sanguines, Jean-Christophe Meurisse the attack on a fact-various that shook France to lay us a (very) black and especially hilarious comedy, proposed in the selection of the 23rd edition of the NIFFF. Back on this feature film on horseback between the absurd and the black humor, which made the audience of the Swiss festival hilare...
Xavier Bernardin de Ligonnes
Lea (Delphine Baril) and Christine (Charlotte Laemmel), inveterate Facebook investigators specializing in the Bernardin case, seem finally to hold the right thread to nail the one who is wanted by the whole France after slaughtering his whole family. At the same time, news reports indicate that a suspect responding to the killer's report was reportedly apprehended in northern Europe. This is the starting point of this acidic comedy which, from sketch to sketch, revisits the story of this mythical assassin.
If throughout the film we rename the killer so much wanted by Paul Bernardin's surname (interpreted by Laurent Stocker), the poster itself admits immediately its obvious inspiration: the Dupont Affair of Ligonnes. Indeed, it is the head of the killer still wanted today – Xavier Dupont de Ligonnes – who sits on the posters of the film, aged digitally and with the mention "We found it!". It must be said that it was necessary to dare to attack this real media figure, which has made France crazy since its disappearance on 15 April 2011, just after having killed wife and children.
And Jean-Christophe Meurisse does not forbid to probe all the traverses that surround this fact-various, between the real media sinking (of which the Facebook cardboard investigators are the paragon), the morbid attraction of the public for these tutelary figures of the sordid and the police efficiency sometimes a bit dubious. Exit the case itself (which concerns only a tiny part of the feature film), Meurisse looks at the galaxy of twisted and incapable people who begin to gravitate around the figure of the murderer in the aftermath of his murders in a gallery of sketches as acidic as they are stripping.
Navarre Dog
Wake up the punk, that's what could be the creed of the Dogs of Navarre. The theatre troupe of Jean-Christophe Meurisse was made known by its raw humour, its scenes leaving much to improvisation and its breach bringing sex and blood on the stage. And all these characteristics, Meurisse dragged them with him for his passage to the big screen with Blood oranges.
With his titles built like exquisite corpses, Meurisse rotted his device from inside. His blood oranges degorged with dirty blood and a resolutely punk pulp, in sketches alternating between absurd comedy and the frank horror ultra-sanguinolent. An exquisite corpse as a title therefore, but also an exquisite corpse of genres, without limitations or self-censorship (on the contrary!), sounding a French society impoverished at the hour of yellow vests and spreading fifty shades of despair.
For Plastic GunsMeurisse does not give up its absurd titles or its permeability to genres. What changes is on the one hand his casting – incorporating with the theater gules more identified figures of cinema or humour, like Jonathan Cohen, Nora Hamzawi or Vincent Dedienne – on the other hand, a greater place left to pure humour. For so ahead Blood oranges We laughed yellow or shouted teeth, Plastic Guns offer a frank humour, certainly black but devilishly irresistible.
Film mills
Written with his companion Amélie Philippe, who also plays a small role in the feature film, Plastic Guns In a frenzied rhythm, immediately launched by this scene in a morgue where Jonathan Cohen (Johnny) and Fred Tousch (John), in a semi-impro palpable, discuss with a dead body.
Another salient mouth: Aymeric Lompret. After leaving France Inter in the wake of Guillaume Meurice's dismissal, he acted as a franchouillard cop trying alongside Vincent Dedienne to dialogue in English with the Danish police. If it is one of his very first roles in cinema, there is no doubt that French comedies would gain from lorging on the side of this new casting head, as hilarious in the film as in (fire) his radio chronicles (including his incredible explanation of joke to the direction of France Inter, making think of the famous "The satirical drawing explained to the cons" published in Charlie Hebdo by Luz, see below).
Last (and not least!) of these movie faces present in Plastic Guns, Charlotte Laemmel who plays one of these indefensible Facebook investigators in search of the great thrill. Under her sweet, sweaty sweetness and her character of an apparent abyssal boredom, the actress manages to embody a dull mediocrity that she twists as the film unfolds until she lets glimpse a frankly terrifying madness.
The duo she shares with Delphine Baril is probably the strongest and most funny thing in the film. As they meet – a chatter concierge and his endless racist soliloque, agent of the airline and finally the simili-Bernardin himself – this film duo makes the film go crazy.
Conclusion
Anyway, you'll understand, Plastic Guns has conquered our zygomatics as well as made the audience of the Theatre of the Passage of the 23rd edition of the NIFFF, discovering the film at the same time as the victory of the NFP in France. Let's make sure that he gives ideas to Hanuna, Marine, Jordan and all the fascists in the small week to go, like Bernardin, to sink happy days across the Earth...
Until then, we can still relax the zygomatics, offer us a hell of a slice of black humour and meditate a little on the ends of the era thanks to the work of Jean-Christophe Meurisse, who has already announced to work on a new play. Case to follow...
I will recall this session launched five minutes before the legislative results. Emotional elevator. The first part of the film is very very very very good. What a casting! We have to go to their next play together.
Yes, it's been a long time since I've been watching touring the Navarre Dogs, but I've never managed to settle down on a date not too far from home... The next one will be the one!!
[...] recently (Happy winners with Fabrice Eboué, films by Jean-Christophe Meurisse like Les Pistolets en plastic). Remains an entertaining object and more intelligent than the average (often rase-motte) of the [...]