While The Substance It's time to come back to the rooms. Reality+, a short film of Coralie Fargeat who already carries in him all the germs of this new long. Between digital illusions and societal dictates, the body-horror is never far away with the French director. A short film to discover on MUBI and on YouTube.
Dream body chip
Vincent (Vincent Colombe) is bad in his skin. Yet, posters in the form of promises cover the buildings of the city where he lives: "Reality+" swears to offer him the appearance he desires. A single chip inserted at the back of the skull, and now in the eyes of all the carriers of this device you will appear under the traits you had always wanted to take. Muscles in a snap of fingers, a virile voice adapted to the octave near and a mouth that is chosen as in an Ikea catalogue, in short: the ideal at hand. Except that the device only works over a 12-hour interval, after which the system must be allowed a pause before it can be repeated. Quickly, this new body allows him to get to know the sublime Stella (Vanessa Hessler) which does not leave him indifferent...
We could not forget Coralie Fargeat. With Revenge She had typed loud by offering a slasher that returned the codes (we talked about it in the article) Alien, the sex beast) : the female was behind the weapon, the male was driven and naked. A raw, frontal, brutal film by the actress Matilda Lutz. Already there, we understood Fargeat's desire to impose himself in a section of cinema still resolutely masculine in order to offer new readings of the snoring ponchives of the genre, without abandoning the aspect of entertainment. An excellent cocktail, which she had proved mastery of. There was something to look forward to for the rest of his career...
Yet, without knowing it, three years before Revenge Fargeat already proposed a short film that carried all the germs of what would become The Substance. Related themes, shared body-horror visions, acerbic criticism of societal dictates, everything is there, packed in a narrative always flirting between horror and science-fiction, seriousness and comedy.
Anti-standard film
Rhealth+ reviews the standards, those that are imposed on us throughout the day. Television, advertising, the Internet, films... everything is constantly flooding us with these "perfect" body images, which the cancer of personal development ends up making desirable. If The Substance focus on female protagonists, Reality+ offers the male pendant and the name of the flea debride program – "Last Longer" – adds a comic wink to the list of injunctions she unfurls in the film.
And if from its beginning the encounter between the Vincent puce and the augmented version of Stella supports the derealizing shift – surplus makeup, ultra-artifical lighting, hollow exchanges – Fargeat will not be able to stop licking with his camera the ultra-formatted bodies of the mannequins that will glaze his film. And these plans (mainly in the nightclub) will not carry those filters that then distracted the audience from the flesh show he saw on the screen. The paradox then becomes exciting: within this film criticising the standards of appearance, the director (and by extension the spectator) will not be able to stop enjoying the spectacle of what these same norms give birth.
Paradoxal, stubborn but also inabouti, this short becomes an ideal entrance door for its new feature film now visible in theaters: The Substance. One more reason to immerse yourself in the work of Coralie Fargeat and to rejoice in her future work!
I have to catch him.