Un Zievereir Somehow disappointing.Whereas "Le P'tit Quinquin" was a leap into comedy for Bruno Dumont, it was not quite the departure one would fear. Rather it seemed to be very much a Dumont film. Its amusing attributes enhanced the work. "Ma Loute", however, feels like an original theatrical comedy that is jewelled with Dumont flourishes. Unlike "P'tit Quinquin" with its humour extricated from a Dumont reality, this feels a purposely created comedy performance blackened at the edges with his dark touches and observations. It does seem as if he openly makes, and exposes, comments on society. There is not the same distance from his subjects as before. That very distance which paradoxically allowed a personal intimate contact to his films, their characters, and their landscapes. Here the audience is watching a stage performance. It lacks the surreality, natural humour, and realism of previous works. The humour is very scripted and many of the characters appear very designed and obviously performed. In 'Hors Satan' and 'Hadewijch' David DeWaele looked the part, not a parody, neither a caricature or even a performance, but there in the landscape, in the wind, timeless and magical.In "Ma Loute" some recurring features of his style don't work in that specifically Dumont way. Instead, the surreality loses its very essence as the inspector floats about. Appearing plastic and intentional, the fingerprints of the director and the script's words are on the screen. The characters and scenes feel as if existing outside of the perceived reality and therefore no longer surreal. The big change here is the perspective and the enforcement of views. Even including "Hadewijch", previous films had a strength where little or nothing was said. Direct moral instruction, opinion or values were absent, rather they were just shown as they are in reality, or on even a spiritual plane. Here social comment appears to be made. Pastiche and parody flaunted as if it were a play. It is as if Dumont is under the influence of a thespian or theatre director, whereas before he was probably alone with his ideas. The humour also feels very scripted. Slapstick, vaudevillian performances, caricatures of the haute bourgeoisie, peasantry, the priest and teenage love are all very entertaining. Luchini's performance and character is adorable. Yet these are not the things I have come to love in Dumont's work. The added elements of the boy-girl ambiguity and the cannibalism are indeed effective, but feel wedged in. The delightful Laurel and Hardy policemen are as lovable as they are hilarious. "Malfoy, malfoy, malfoy...."Personally, Juliette Binoche is generally quite unappealing. Even to the extent that a mild tedium envelopes me when her name appears on opening credits. However, here her over the top performance is quite delicious. She overshadows the previous wonderfully floral performance of Valerie Bruni-Tedeschi (sister to the notorious Carla Bruni).Of course the landscape and his framing of it, is exceptional and genius. Sometimes it feels unreal and crafted. Yet he also makes the sea, sky and land appear open as it would in our 360° reality, unrestricted by the camera lense or the screen. There are plenty of Dumont images within. One that hit me is the wonderful shot of the father, 'L'Eternel', in the sky/landscape. His impossible eyes somehow reflecting and contrasting the blue open heavens and the sand dunes. Allowing myself some grieving, I do however believe this to be an excellent film with wonderful ideas, performances and of course directing/photography. Dumont has not lost his magic touch. It is still here. The film is just simply different to his back catalogue and therefore, as I yearn for more of Dumont's established style, this pinches my enjoyment of this otherwise delightful performance piece.

t_timchenko The worst movie of 2016 for me. Stay away. I like European movies. I love French cinema. And I liked Valeria Bruni Tedeschi in "Un château en Italie" and in "Ah! Si j'étais riche". Actually I went to see her perform. I was disappointed in her performance and in the movie itself. I was expecting something unusual, unorthodox and quirky but at the same time pleasant and light. But this is beyond my expectations.This movie is terrible and disgusting, not funny at all and leaving an aftertaste. I understand the metaphors and allusions, but this is just disgusting execution.There were 5 people in the movie theater at the beginning of the movie and 3 people stayed till the end (I was one of them). Why did I do it to myself? I should have left at the beginning.

Rodica This movie is so bad that it motivated me to create an account on IMDb and tell other people not to go seeing it. I don't know what happened in the mind of the guy who put this through, but it's an awful result: a particularly boring movie, nothing interesting happens, famous actors just saying their words (how did they accept to do it?!), painful and absolutely not funny scenes, in two words: a cinema disaster! I am so deceived for the French cinema after seeing this, don't know when I'll have the courage to go see another one...not so soon I suppose. If going into details, there is an absence of action in the movie that makes it painful to watch, especially in a cinema: I wanted to get out from there and run after 30 minutes! Then, the very special humor the author wants to share is simply not funny: showing us the specific accent of people in the North of France (presented as something indistinguishable), is supposed to be funny, but it is not, especially when is repeated several times over the movie. Eventually, what is somehow funny is people falling down from a chair or having a car accident, oh my god this is so funny, this gives you an idea about the degree of fun of the movie. Then, the story in itself has too many elements that go right and left and at the center and then again at the center right and left: please understand here that there is no such a story in this movie and more importantly, no interesting story. The general theme of mocking the French bourgeoisie of the beginning of the XXth century could have been a good start for an interesting crazy story if the script and the making of the movie were achieved. Instead, despite some brilliant actor play (Luchini) the result is bullshit.

Wim Boeren Ma Loute is apparently a comedy, or so the information on the website of my cinema told me. I don't think I will ever understand the French's sense of humor. French might be the language of love and romance but it is definitely NOT the language of laughter. Judging on the reactions and faces of my fellow viewers in the theater they agreed with me. All the characters walk weird, talk weird, look weird, stare weird and weird stuff happens out of the blue for no reason. Ma Loute is a very weird and bizarre experience. Nothing wrong with that. Except that there is no method to the madness, no consistency to anything in the entire movie and no coherency to the jokes. All I saw was fat people jokes, dumb people jokes and weird-for-the-sake-of-being-weird people jokes. The only mildly interesting thing about Ma Loute were the two main story lines. All the more infuriating that for most of the movie those story lines are an afterthought. And to no-one's surprise, none of the story lines got any kind of resolution. Avoid at all costs!