Playing his signature brand of rural French absurdity in stark counterpoint to the grandiose strains of a space opera, Bruno Dumont returns with The Empire: his Barbarella bourguignon, his dijionnaise Dune. The Empire is the story of two warring factions: one whose mothership resembles the palace of Versailles; the other’s as if someone glued together two Notre Dames, crypt to crypt. It follows their envoys on earth, now in human form and attempting to capture a toddler who they believe to be the Chosen One––whose mere presence makes them bow down like bodies in rigor mortis. There are blasé beheadings with lightsabers, a group of men on Boulonnais horses who call themselves the Knights of Wain, and, for no apparent reason, the commandant (Bernard Pruvost) and lieutenant (Philippe Jore) from P’tit Quinquin.
If that all sounds like a mixed bag it’s probably because The Empire is...
If that all sounds like a mixed bag it’s probably because The Empire is...
- 2/19/2024
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
Out of the many movies you could imagine emerging from the mind of French auteur Bruno Dumont, a Star Wars parody was probably somewhere at the bottom of the list.
And yet it’s been some time since the Cannes Grand Jury Prize laureate, who broke out in the late 90s with viscerally stylized, hard-hitting works of Gallic realism like The Life of Jesus and Humanity, has strayed far from his gritty roots towards a brand of accentuated arthouse satire.
His latest effort, the sci-fi farce The Empire (L’Empire), definitely fits the latter mold, although it’s loaded with enough VFX, light saber battles, spacecrafts and prophecies to give George Lucas a run for his money. That is, if Lucas decided to set the next Star Wars in a sleepy northern French city, used a local mechanic to play one of the leads and tossed in a few flagrant sex scenes,...
And yet it’s been some time since the Cannes Grand Jury Prize laureate, who broke out in the late 90s with viscerally stylized, hard-hitting works of Gallic realism like The Life of Jesus and Humanity, has strayed far from his gritty roots towards a brand of accentuated arthouse satire.
His latest effort, the sci-fi farce The Empire (L’Empire), definitely fits the latter mold, although it’s loaded with enough VFX, light saber battles, spacecrafts and prophecies to give George Lucas a run for his money. That is, if Lucas decided to set the next Star Wars in a sleepy northern French city, used a local mechanic to play one of the leads and tossed in a few flagrant sex scenes,...
- 2/18/2024
- by Jordan Mintzer
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
It is increasingly weird to recall that for a while, French director Bruno Dumont was the kind of filmmaker who reminded you, often forcibly and somewhat against your will, that the word “auteur” contains most of the letters of “austere.” “The Empire,” another of the director’s proudly off-kilter comedies that pitches the bumbling denizens of a small French village into a vast, sinister conspiracy extending far beyond their foreshortened horizons, hovers several light years — and two janky light sabers — away from austerity. Unfortunately, though, the air out there is also a little thin on hilarity, with the film’s one-gag setup becoming stretched to the point that it doesn’t even matter that it’s a pretty good gag.
The humor, as ever with the Dumont of “Li’l Quinquin” and “Slack Bay,” derives largely from the collision of the grandiose with the drolly mundane. This time out, harking back to,...
The humor, as ever with the Dumont of “Li’l Quinquin” and “Slack Bay,” derives largely from the collision of the grandiose with the drolly mundane. This time out, harking back to,...
- 2/18/2024
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
A film project that originally had (at different junctures) the likes of Virginie Efira, Lily-Rose Depp and Adèle Haenel had a change of fleet with Camille Cottin, Anamaria Vartolomei and finally Lyna Khoudri coming aboard. The Cineuropa folks have confirmed that Julien Manier and the Li’l Quinquin tandem Bernard Pruvost and Philippe Jore have also joined the Bruno Dumont‘s L’Empire – a three month (in sections) production that began last week until beginning of September on the Opal Coast that will then move into Brussels, then Caserte, and Berlin in November. Tessalit Productions’ Jean Bréhat and Bertrand Faivre are producing.…...
- 8/24/2022
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.