Slack Bay

Those taken aback by the master of minimalist miserabilism Bruno Dumont attempting a comedy with TV series L'il Quinquin in 2014, may be aghast to see the director invoke the spirits of Buñuel and Tati in this absurdist belle époque romp. But his vicious swipe at the French elite works surprisingly well, thanks to the astute casting of non-professionals Thierry Lavieville and his son Brandon as the flesh-eating fishermen preying on tourists to the beach resort where a bourgeois family of twits (Fabrice Luchini, Juliette Binoche, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) have come to stay in their grotesque Egyptianate villa. Luchini and Binoche particularly enjoy themselves caricaturing costume saga manners and mores, although a romance between Lavieville Jr and Binoche's gender-amorphous offspring (played by Raph in her feature debut) feels more strained. The knockabout antics of a hapless, portly cop and a levitational interlude might also have been toned down. But Dumont revels in the mealtime contrasts between the two clans, which are photographed with the same mischievous eye for telling detail that cameraman Guillaume Deffontaines brings to his painterly views of the Normandy coast and its inland marshes.