Albert Dupontel is currently showing with his 7th feature film, “Adieu les cons”. Back on his filmography as a filmmaker, from the crazy “Bernie” to the adaptation of “Goodbye up there”.
Bernie (1996)
1996. With his first production, Albert Dupontel, just out of a rich experience in the one-man-show, strikes a blow. Because this Bernie looks like nothing in the French cinematographic landscape of the time: the story of this neurotic orphan, disconnected from the real world, who will try everything to shed light on his origins, is a real UFO, a ferocious comedy sometimes very funny, sometimes dark, with a crazy energy, and dubbed, please, by Monty Python Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones. In short, an uncompromising punk film that splashes French cinoche with its madness and in which Bernie, to whom Dupontel lends his features, throws his shovels, eats a living canary and loves hyenas. One of a kind, but reserved for an informed public!
The Creator (1999)
Three years after the Bernie cult, which will have achieved great public success with nearly 850,000 admissions on the clock, Albert Dupontel returns with The Creator. The story of this renowned author who realizes that he forgot to write his new play that is about to be performed will not meet with the same success. However, this ambitious work is a small nugget which allows Dupontel to refine his style by going further into farce and absurdity, with a brilliant staging, full of finds of all kinds. A crazy, trashy black comedy to be rediscovered, in which Monty Python Terry Jones embodies nothing less than … God!
Locked Out (2006)
Released in theaters in 2006, Locked Out is perhaps Dupontel’s craziest film. A burlesque tornado in which the latter offers himself the role of a homeless person who, after finding a cop’s uniform, decides to eat in the police canteens. Crazy as ever, this cartoony social fable above which hover the shadows of Buster Keaton, Tex Avery and Chaplin, is frankly jubilant. A satire that goes at 200 an hour, ultra-generous and inventive, very funny but also not devoid of poetry, in short, a film that definitely imposes the quirky style of Dupontel and exudes the love of cinoche!
The Villain (2009)
Behind this name, Le Vilain, hides a bank robber (Dupontel), back after 20 years of absence. He goes to hide with his mother Maniette (unrecognizable Catherine Frot!), Thinking he has found a perfect hideout. But the latter will discover the true nature of her son and will do everything to put him back on the “right path”. The Villain offers us a burlesque and merciless duel, with a tandem at the top of its form. Crazy, crazy and always squeaky!
9 months firm (2013)
Sandrine Kiberlain as an ultra strict judge, single and pregnant with a thug … With 9 months firm, Albert Dupontel invites us to discover a funny and squeaky comedy, in which he forms a crazy tandem with Sandrine Kiberlain, excellent in this burlesque register . The film reserves a few scenes of rare comic power, instantly past cult! His tandem with Dupontel makes sparks. Misunderstandings, twists and turns, we take great pleasure in following their delirious adventures.
Goodbye Up There (2017)
Adaptation of Pierre Lemaitre’s bestseller, Au revoir là-haut is probably the most successful and richest film in the teeming universe of Albert Dupontel. He is also perhaps the one who stands out the most, moving away from the squeaky and delirious side of the filmmaker’s first works. The visual and scripted richness of Au revoir là-haut impresses: dense, inspired, creative and with a range of amazing actors. Albert Dupontel found in the book the material to express his visual ideas and his creativity, and to slip many nods to the cinema he loves, from Chaplin to Gilliam.
The plot takes place during the Second World War, in 1919. Two survivors of the trenches, one a draftsman, the other a modest accountant, decide to set up a scam at war memorials. In the France of the Roaring Twenties, the company will prove to be as dangerous as it is spectacular …
With its main masked hero (the impressive Nahuel Perez Biscayart), (re) discovering this film today takes a special turn!