Incredible But True - 2023 Alliance Française French Film Festiv

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https://www.affrenchfilmfestival.org/

05/03/2023 until 19/04/2023

Incredible But True was shot in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and while only featuring a handful of characters and limited sets, it still feels large in vista.

Alain Chabat and Léa Drucker play Alain and Marie, a couple of middle-aged house hunters being shown a rundown house in the suburbs. The real estate agent puzzles the pair by showing them the house’s unique feature: a hole in the floor that, through an interesting Escher-style quirk, leads down into the upstairs bedroom. In other words, by going down, you wind up on a higher floor than you were before.

But that’s not all. The hole leading to the basement to the upstairs bedroom has a second, power that astonishes them, the ability to become younger. The house is a metaphysical wonder at a bargain price. They buy it and Marie becomes obsessed with their house’s “portal”. Meanwhile, the couple’s near-neighbor, who is also Alain’s boss, has a problem: Gégé (Benoît Magimel) has had an electronic penis installed using untested Japanese technology and it is far from faultless.

Marie quickly grows addicted to the idea of de-aging using the hole in the floor twice a day while Alain helplessly watches silently, running the risk of losing his long-term partner in the process.

Incredible But True is a parable about people wanting to stop or reverse their biological clocks and paying for it with karma. What makes it quite fun is how realistically director Quentin Dupieux depicts events, turning the extraordinary into something ordinary, at least for the main characters. We never doubt them, which makes us believe things even when they can’t be true.

Dupieux direction produces four strong main character performances, while Jon Santo’s synth-led score mirrors the film’s quirky weirdness. The last 15 minutes of this film are almost entirely dialogue-free, choosing to present the storyline's conclusion in a frenzied montage accompanied by an electronic accompaniment.

As all other sound drops out, the attention focuses on Gerald and Marie learning the hard lesson: getting what you want doesn’t always make you happy.

Incredible But True is a film that will sweep the audience with its magical storytelling and bizarre sense of humour.

Reviewed by Barry Hill OAM