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Trailer for P'tit Quinquin.

Thanks, repeat. Though I dread sitting for four hours in the musty, butt-bustingly uncomfortable sub-basement of the Cannes Marriott where the Directors' Fortnight films premiere, this trailer skyrockets the Dumont to the top of my "to see" list.

Fingers crossed it's playing opposite the Loach or Miller or something I'd just as soon skip in the competition.

Not only does that look like a comedy but it also feels like a parody of pretty much every other film Dumont has made until now. It's certainly a new direction and one I never could have predicted. And it's a TV show? Weird.

Yes, four episodes of 52 minutes. Really chuffed to see him take such a strong turn towards comedy - I remember an interview where he was asked for favourite films in about half a dozen respects, and every answer was either Mon Oncle or Pollet's Pourvu qu’on ait l’ivresse...!

Don't know what the chance of this travelling to foreign festivals is, let alone of it to be aired anywhere outside of France - hopefully Arte or someone will put it on disc eventually...

I'm kind of obsessed with the trailer and the prospect of this series. It seems particularly to evoke La vie de Jésus (the opening band playing, same as in the trailer for Jésus, the provincial racism), and L'Humanité (the eccentric investigator, the police procedural filtered through Dumont's sensibilities).

I'm really delighted that he's gone and made something like this - I hope it will make its way to the States at some point. Does anyone know when it's set to air in France?

This is a running series or a mini?

Mini, see above. It's set to air on Arte in September. Allocine has some production shots and a poster.

Kino Lorber acquires P'tit Quin Quin. This report says it's a "film," but it's being screened and released in Europe as a multi episode TV serial. So here's hoping they at least just cobble all the episodes together instead of cutting out a whole bunch of material. Not to mention that they give it a real release in theaters and on Blu-ray, unlike the way they sort of dumped Camille Claudel 1915.

My apologies if this is an inappropriate question, but is anyone aware of English subtitles available for P'tit Quinquin? I have the Blu-ray but my French is not quite up to watching films fully without subtitles. I've searched online but have had no luck thus far. Any help is much appreciated!

None yet that I'm aware, lefeufollet. I went ahead and bought the French blu as well which should be arriving today or tomorrow. I think with the SDH subs I should be able to manage. I imagine someone will do an English fansub soon enough, since the blu has already taken care of the timing work; it's also been available with subs (so I hear - don't have an account myself) on Festival Scope for a while.

Oedipax wrote:None yet that I'm aware, lefeufollet. I went ahead and bought the French blu as well which should be arriving today or tomorrow. I think with the SDH subs I should be able to manage. I imagine someone will do an English fansub soon enough, since the blu has already taken care of the timing work; it's also been available with subs (so I hear - don't have an account myself) on Festival Scope for a while.

I think SDH are pretty much a must for a number of people perhaps even a lot of native speakers. What with the Ch'ti accent and the Inspector's supra-Tatiesque tics every vowel is gargled and every consonant hawked making it very funny but a bit of a trial sometimes to understand.

Excellent point, Nabob! I've often noticed the further outside Paris a film is set, the more difficulty I have understanding anything...

Just wanted to add some exciting news I read just now on the DVD Classik forum - it sounds like there will likely be a second season of P'tit Quinquin. Dumont will presumably start after finishing a new film project, which is also a comedy! Very unexpected turn his career's taken but so far the results seem quite promising.

As i spent my fall holidays in the village where Quinquin was shot - this is indeed a different slang… As this place is quite small i found it really fascinating how close to the village the shots were selected - almost every location is in walking distance if not in the village itself (church, bunker(s), beach, the memorial, etc.). The film is enormously funny and once the spiderman kid enters the farmyard i was literally falling off the chair…

The exraordinary thing about PQ is how Dumont uses his usual arsenal of composition and rhythm but just by shifting the register of the performance pulls of an amazing comedic feat that is also in itself multi-layered . From Tatiesque mugging and Dukes of Hazzard car antics down to the downright absurdist slapstick of the priests the centre somehow does hold. Did anyone else find that the last episode did retreat somewhat into a poignancy and an undertow of grimness that we have learned to expect from Dear Bruno as if he couldn't totally let it all hang out.

Oedipax wrote:Dumont will presumably start after finishing a new film project, which is also a comedy!

If you're referring to the Péguy / Joan of Arc musical announced just recently, note that the French "comédie musicale" doesn't necessarily imply comical content. Either way it's another fascinating turn!

repeat wrote:

Oedipax wrote:Dumont will presumably start after finishing a new film project, which is also a comedy!

If you're referring to the Péguy / Joan of Arc musical announced just recently, note that the French "comédie musicale" doesn't necessarily imply comical content. Either way it's another fascinating turn!

It could be that project or another - the LesInrocks interview from September where Dumont mentioned it just says comédie (and that comedy is what interests and excites him now, not revisiting the type of cinema he's made up to this point):

L’après P’tit Quinquin, ce sera quoi ?

Je suis sur un projet de film, une comédie. C’est ce qui m’intéresse maintenant, c’est nouveau pour moi, ça m’excite. Je ne vais pas faire Hadewich 2 ou L’Humanité 2. Je n’ai pas envie de refaire un pan de cinéma que j’ai déjà fait.

NABOB OF NOWHERE wrote:Did anyone else find that the last episode did retreat somewhat into a poignancy and an undertow of grimness that we have learned to expect from Dear Bruno as if he couldn't totally let it all hang out.

Spoiler

Yes - its also the first time where we see a dead body/victim (beach scene + body wrapped in "fishing net"?) plus the suicide of the pop star was also quite brutal. And Qinquins uncle walking through the woods at night (same night as the suicide), scary. But overall the whole thing is still pure madness. Would love to see more episodes as the only let down was in fact the ending.

Oedipax wrote:It could be that project or another - the LesInrocks interview from September where Dumont mentioned it just says comédie

Thanks, hadn't seen this interview! Could indeed be either or. Exciting developments.

A couple small notes after my first viewing of P'tit Quinquin - first, I can't find reference to it here anymore, but somewhere I recall someone asking if the blu-ray split it up into episodes or if it could be viewed all together like at Cannes and in select theatrical screenings. Good news - yes, it can be viewed without interruption or episodically with opening/closing credits and plot recaps. The plot recaps are also in the 2.0:1 ratio as was shown on TV, and it's an interesting way to compare the two (no surprise I vastly prefer the 2.40:1 the blu itself is presented in).

Second, less encouragingly, the blu-ray is encoded 1080i50. I lucked out because my player can handle such discs, but the conversion to 1080i60 meant there was some artifacting visible especially on high-detail landscape shots, as well as intermittent interlacing. Not a show-stopper, but a little disappointing. I hope its TV origins are to account for the 1080i50 master, and that the Dumont blu-ray box out next week will be all 1080p24...

As for the film/series itself - wow! It's everything I expected a Dumont comedy to be and more, in a way that is totally refreshing and bizarre.

Spoiler

The lack of resolution is unsurprising of course, but I'll be curious to see what direction it goes in assuming season 2 comes to pass. My money was on Quinquin's father, with Dany being the red herring or possibly an unwitting accomplice of sorts...

I also found it stunning the way Dumont mixes the ugly realities of French provincial life (i.e. rampant xenophobia and racism) right alongside characters we are otherwise more or less sympathetic towards and draw some amusement from, as well as the absurdist/fantastical mixing with the meat and potatoes policier/procedural aspects. Dumont has been speaking a lot about L'Humanité in interviews, which is on the surface the closest filmic connection, but really the work I was most reminded of (especially in light of the Mohamed character) was La vie de Jésus.

Oedipax wrote:It could be that project or another - the LesInrocks interview from September where Dumont mentioned it just says comédie

Aha, here it is:

Among these titles is the promising Ma loute, the eighth fiction feature film by Bruno Dumont (...) The plot will immerse audiences in the early 20th century, telling a tragi-comic tale set at a seaside resort in Pas de Calais, where two families that have absolutely nothing in common are at the centre of a raft of mysterious disappearances

English subtitles for P'tit Quinquin have wended their way to the usual channels. Tomorrow evening is sorted for me!

How fucking good is P'tit Quinquin? Saw the whole thing in one go on the big screen just a couple of days ago. Went down like a charm with the (packed!) audience, which I guess is more than can be said about his previous stuff: the sugar-coating with humor/irony seems to do its work, but really this is no slighter than any of his earlier films. It's especially striking, reading interviews done around L'Humanité, that a lot of his comments on that film could just as well apply to Quinquin. The heart of evil indeed.

I assume a subbed US or UK release is unlikely?

Scroll up: Kino is releasing it here, which would make it very likely. The only question is Blu or no Blu -- will they standard def dump it the way they did with Camille Claudel 1915?

Yeah, Kino have picked it up for distribution and it's supposed to tour theatrically early this year. I'd definitely recommend seeing it, even if you don't generally like Dumont...especially if you don't generally like Dumont.

(I feel like it might be a little too much for you though, MK. Tonally, it reminds me a little of Ruiz's Ce jour-là, if that's helpful.)