Slack Bay
2016 · Directed by Bruno Dumont
Original language: French
- comedy
The story
Summer, 1910. Inspectors Machin and Malfoy investigate the mysterious disappearances of several tourists on the beautiful beaches of Slack Bay, where a strange community of fishermen lives.
What it’s like
Flat, bright northern-coast light, with sea haze, pale sand and tidal flats stretching to the horizon, and a camera that holds still on stiff, costumed tableaux while the figures inside them barely move. Compositions are symmetrical and deliberately staged, like painted postcards gone slightly wrong, and the sound is mostly wind, gulls and surf, with the occasional rhythmic music cutting in to underline a gesture. Its vibe is deadpan absurdism: sun-bleached, stilted and amused, a summer-holiday mood curdling into the grotesque. The pacing is slow and rigid, the comedy arriving through repetition, formal manners and blank-faced reactions rather than punchlines. Its people are self-important or oblivious, and the story's shape is a pair of officious investigators drifting further from competence as the coast reveals its odd community. Violence is sudden and matter-of-fact, with some gore and bodily shock, brief nudity, and sexual content that is frank rather than erotic; it is comic in tone but not gentle, and some images will be unsettling. Suited to viewers who enjoy Dumont's chilly, provocative style and want an offbeat, mordant comedy watched alone or with friends who don't mind a dark streak.
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