Reality

Released by: IFC Midnight/Shout! Factory
Released on: September 15, 2015
Director: Quentin Dupieux
Cast: Alain Chabat, Jonathan Lambert, Kyla Kennedy, í‰lodie Bouchez, Eric Warheim, John Heder, John Glover, Matt Battaglia, Bambadjan Bamba, Lola Delon
Year: 2014
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The Movie:

A man named Mike (Matt Battaglia) shoots a wild boar in the woods while his 7-year-old daughter Reality (Kyla Kennedy) naps in their vehicle nearby. Later, the youngster watches as her father guts and dresses the animal. She sees a videocassette fall from its innards but says nothing. When she tries afterward to retrieve the object from amongst the entrails in an outdoor trashcan, her mother (Susan Diol) spots her and shoos her away from the mess.

Elsewhere, a nerd named Denis (Jon Heder) is hosting an interview/cooking program while dressed as a rat. He scratches himself constantly as he questions his guest, and the taping is halted to address the issue. An angry Denis accuses the wardrobe woman of washing his costume in cheap detergent. She denies doing so, pointing out correctly that the skin rash he's displaying is, in fact, not there. An office staffer (Bambadjan Bamba) enters the room with a pile of viewer complaints about Denis's onscreen scratching. Denis informs them all that he will consult a dermatologist.

Then it's back to Reality and her family. Over supper, the girl tells her folks about the videocassette in the boar's guts and is informed that she saw no such thing. When bedtime arrives, Mom reads her a story about a little girl who thinks there is a videocassette in a pig's stomach. Reality is then left to go to sleep, and the image of her doing so is revealed to be a projection in a screening room. Watching the child are French producer Bob Marshall (Jonathan Lambert) and documentary filmmaker Zog (John Glover). The two bicker over the footage, which is part of some unnamed larger project that Zog is putting together. Their exchange is interrupted by news that Marshall has a visitor waiting for him in his office.

That caller is Jason Tantra (Alain Chabat), a cameraman from Denis's cooking show. He is there to solicit backing for his own dream project: a science-fiction movie about killer televisions. Marshall, indifferent at first, becomes excited about the proposal as he hears more. He agrees to fund it, but on one condition: the would-be director has 48 hours to come up with the perfect "Oscar-winning" groan to use on the film's soundtrack. If he fails at that task, there will be no financing and no film.

Like some of David Lynch's oeuvre—Lost Highway or Mullholland Drive, say—Quentin Dupieux's Reality makes sense only when the viewer isn't trying to make sense of it. Things go from merely odd to downright weird and abstract in pretty short order. One character's dream is another's everyday life. Another's everyday life is someone else's piece of cinema. Characters swap identities and interact with other versions of themselves. Events repeat with slight variations, as though having been edited and resubmitted to the viewer. The result isn't exactly coherent, but it isn't nonsensical, either. The story being told does follow a consistent, if baffling, set of rules. Those with no tolerance for the absurd and abstract, however, will find Reality pretty tough going.

The cast is good, mostly at ease with the strangeness on display. Alain Chabat (who looks like Italian thespian Ugo Tognazzi but isn't) is an A-list actor in France but largely unknown here. (He did portray Napoleon in 2009's Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.) More familiar to American audiences is Jon (Napoleon Dynamite) Heder, playing the same character here as he did in that 2004 film. Relative newcomer Kyla Kennedy, who had only a minor appearance in 2012's The Three Stooges to her credit when she made this, shines in the title role. Also impressive as Reality's parents are Matt Battaglia (True Detective, Thor, Queer as Folk) and Susan Diol, Shawn Cassidy's ex-wife and seasoned television veteran (Hart of Dixie, CSI, Star Trek: Voyager).

Although Reality hails from France, it's basically an English-language film in which a bit of subtitled French rears its artsy head now and then. And while the U.S. release of the film is unrated, it veers into soft-R territory with some (mostly comical) gore and a handful of f-bombs.

Video/Audio/Extras:

IFC and Shout! Factory have released Reality on a 25GB disc, appropriate given that the film is relatively short (it clocks in at under 90 minutes) and there are no extras. There are certainly no compression issues to speak of. Shout! has given the film an MPEG-4 AVC encode and a resolution of 1080p. The aspect ratio replicates the film's original theatrical ratio of 1.85:1 and perfectly befits the image. The color has been slightly and purposefully desaturated, giving the film a somewhat earthy, brownish tint without looking unnatural. Where the film really pops is in the detail. From the opening daylight shot to the various bright and dark sequences, the image never appears dull. Sharpness is the order of the day, with beautiful black and gray levels that exhibit no crush whatsoever. The brightness levels appear boosted, but never do they appear washed out. Reality was clearly shot on digital video and never looks entirely film-like, but neither does it look like typical video. It falls somewhere in between and is quite pleasing to the eye.

The film's aural track is presented on Blu-ray in English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (the DVD contains the track in Dolby Digital 5.1). The 5.1 presentation is preferable, with the dialogue front, center, and prominent. There really aren't many sound effects, and the score is mostly minimalist, but when these do pop up, they accentuate the dialogue from various channels without ever interfering with it. During the film's French-language sequences, there are non-removable subtitles, while the English-language sequences contain optional subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired.

As mentioned above, there are no extras. On a positive note, however, Shout! has included the film on DVD as well as on BD. While the DVD is several steps below the BD in terms of audio-visual quality, it still looks and sounds quite good.

The Final Word:

If absurdity is your bag, Reality should prove an enjoyable trip. Those who prefer stories with an identifiable beginning, middle, and end, however, should probably look elsewhere for their 90 minutes of entertainment. Dupieux's most challenging work is Lynchian fare intended for those who love deciphering difficult cinematic texts, and the audio-visual quality provides the perfect showcase for his celluloid eccentricities.

Christopher D. Workman is a freelance writer, film critic, and co-author (with Troy Howarth) of the Tome of Terror horror-film review series. Volume 2 of that series (covering the 1930s) is currently available from Midnight Marquee Press, Inc.

Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!