DAAAAAAL! Review: Dancing Between the Real and the Imagined

In the realm of cinema, the distinction between the real and the imagined is often a subtle dance, a concept that Quentin Dupieux navigates with distinctive finesse.

Known for his flair for the dadaesque and the absurd, Dupieux has reached a prolific period in his career, consistently releasing two films annually. His most recent film, Daaaaaali!, follows closely on the heels of his preceding work, Yannick. The latter is a hui clos social satire that revolves around a disgruntled man who holds a theatre hostage after a disappointing performance.

In contrast, Daaaaaali! marks an evolution in Dupieux’s oeuvre, as he ventures into the realm of biographical storytelling. True to his unconventional approach, however, the filmmaker dubs it a "real fake biopic." True to its title, the film delves into the life of the iconic Catalan surrealist, Salvador Dalí.

Quentin Dupieux’s cinematic endeavors, renowned for not conforming to traditional genre constraints, find their latest expression in Daaaaaali!, which steadfastly maintains this trend. The film unfolds around a deceptively straightforward plot where a French journalist (Anaïs Demoustier of Smoking Causes Coughing and Incredible But True), endeavors to secure an interview with Salvador Dalí, only to face repeated setbacks.

These thwarted attempts to reach the artist serve as a comedic unraveling of reality, aligning with Dupieux’s signature surreal dream logic. The journalist’s futile pursuit becomes a symbol for the challenge of comprehending Dalí, as well as an allusion to his notoriously difficult disposition.

Dupieux suggests that Dalí’s most significant creation was the cultivated public image of himself. This biopic, or rather a real-fake portrait, delves into the enigmatic essence of the artist, exploring themes of identity’s fluidity and the inherent futility in trying to fully decipher such a complex individual.

Echoing the approach of Todd Haynes in his Bob Dylan biopic, I'm Not There, Quentin Dupieux’s Daaaaaali! employs a rotating ensemble of actors to capture the multifaceted persona of Salvador Dalí. Gilles Lellouche, Édouard Baer, Jonathan Cohen, Pio Marmaï, and Didier Flamand each adopt the artist’s recognizable thin, upturned mustache, infusing distinct dimensions into their shared role while maintaining Dalí’s characteristic grandiose self-presentation.

This choice to fragment Dalí’s portrayal extends beyond mere directorial whimsy; it reflects Dupieux’s methodical subversion of a singular reality. As the narrative progresses, each iteration of Dalí seems to inhabit a separate plane of existence, with Dupieux orchestrating a complex narrative that blurs the lines between dreams and the multiple realities depicted onscreen, challenging the audience’s perception of a unified truth.

Quentin Dupieux’s oeuvre, often likened to an expansive sketch, is faithfully represented in the 79-minute runtime of Daaaaaali!, a film that remains succinct yet captivatingly immersive. In it, a seemingly straightforward interview metamorphoses into an unattainable dream.

Dupieux manipulates the fabric of time, space, and narrative with channeling the intricacy and finesse of M.C. Escher´s illusionist paintings. His mastery -- Dupiex lensed and edited the film, as usual -- is evident as he deftly intertwines reality with a stream of visual humor, crafting a cinematic experience that both disorients and delights.

In his latest work Daaaaaali!, Quentin Dupieux transitions from literal (and quite grotesque) interpretations of Dalí's imaginative works to a rapid succession of reality-altering sequences, a dynamic that could be disorienting in its intensity. The thwarted interview serves as the narrative catalyst, propelling a complex, layered joke that plumbs the depths of a dream within a dream, akin to a maze of mirrors.

Dupieux, a master illusionist, performs the cinematic equivalent of the classic tablecloth trick with such deftness that it transcends mere spectacle to evoke a philosophical inquiry. This narrative device, executed with Dupieux's characteristic precision, continually astonishes, inviting viewers to ponder the deeper implications of perception and reality.

Quentin Dupieux's depiction of Salvador Dalí in Daaaaaali! oscillates between authenticity and blatant fabrication, consummately blurring the lines. The collective portrayal by actors Gilles Lellouche, Édouard Baer, Jonathan Cohen, and Pio Marmaï embodies the artist's self-aggrandizing tendencies, evident in their delivery of verbose, third-person monologues.

Dupieux’s Dalí emerges as a figure intoxicated by his self-declared originality, exuding megalomania, egocentrism and exhibitionism. Yet, amidst this grandiosity, the portrayal retains the clowning wit for which the historical Dalí was renowned.

The actors’ performances are a vivid display of showmanship, mirroring Dupieux's own manipulation of reality within the film’s narrative. Their interpretations are so deliberately overstated that they serve simultaneously as homage and caricature, capturing the essence of Dalí's enigmatic persona.

Daaaaaali! features a quartet of actors who collectively interpret the role of Salvador Dalí, a figure as controversial as he is influential, known for his unreliable testimonies. This ensemble mirrors Dupieux’s own idiosyncratic style of whimsical reality distortion, a motif present throughout his oeuvre, notably in films like Wrong and Reality.

While the setting of Daaaaaali! is largely restricted to the interior spaces of Dalí's villa or a hotel room, the narrative expands beyond these confines through temporal anomalies. Characters trapped in these spaces find themselves in a cycle of time loops, with Dupieux cleverly disrupting linear causality akin to a Russian nesting doll structure of dreams within reality, and vice versa.

The film itself becomes a comical metaphysical rollercoaster, intertwining the relativity of time and the fluidity of dream states, fitting for the surreal nature of a "real-fake" biopic of Dalí. Just as Dalí’s art explored his own brand of quantum mysticism, Daaaaaali! serves as a "quantum sketch," with reality seeping and dissolving across various dimensions, in Dupieux’s trademarked pop fabulist style.

Review originally published in November 2023. The film opens Friday, October 4, in Los Angeles, via Music Box Films.