THE STORY – When Jackie tells his friend Bruno that they might be living in a simulation, Bruno takes the idea surprisingly seriously. As he begins searching for glitches in reality, his ordinary day slowly starts to unravel.
THE CAST – Alain Chabat, Jonathan Cohen, Anaïs Demoustier & Jean-Marie Winling
THE TEAM – Quentin Dupieux (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 67 Minutes
A central tenet of the manosphere, the red pill, primarily popularised by Lana and Lilly Wachowski’s “The Matrix,” has since metastasized into something else entirely – now a latent metaphor for dissidence, where it once gestured towards a life of conformity. The matrix ideology, a core staple of far-right think tanks, has gone so far as to be referenced by figurehead Andrew Tate, whereby he suggested that “the matrix has attacked me,” upon being arrested. Simulation theory, albeit old news, in post-COVID texts means something else entirely, feeling contextually predatory rather than wholeheartedly theoretical.
It’s exactly this theory that Quentin Dupieux levies as his latest infinite sandbox with the latest Directors’ Fortnight closing edition title, “Le Vertige.” As Jacky (Alain Chabat) stumbles down the street to his close friend Bruno’s (Jonathan Cohen) at 05:52 am, only one thing is on his mind: he’s “absolutely certain that the world we live in is not real.” Not too unlike the film’s short, sweet 67-minute runtime, Jacky is quick to get to the point, listing bullet-pointed evidence to support his theory, including a pigeon stuck in a manhole and Bruno’s wife, Fabienne (Anaïs Demoustier), giving birth in the middle of their Parisian apartment sans umbilical cord. Despite the madcap premise, however, “Le Vertige’s” greatest strength isn’t in the bouncy two-hander screenplay at its core, but in its presentation.
Animated by a team of five using Blender and a handful of iPhone motion capture technologies, “Le Vertige,” which happens to be Dupieux’s first animated feature, hews closer to “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City” and PlayStation 1 era realism than “Into the Spider-Verse.” Yes, we got Grand Theft Baguette before GTA 6. Elevating this choice is the way in which the form, by virtue of its video-gamey design, is in conversation with the content. As such, the simulation-tale enables a sort of dream logic that feels permissible within a landscape where terms such as “bug” and “hotfix” are within direct frame of reference and therefore interact with the very puzzlebox Jacky is desperate to solve.
Despite Chabat and Cohen’s confident, electric chemistry, however, “Le Vertige” manages to spread itself too thin. The novelty of plasticky storefronts, unrendered backdrops, and cardboard-like characters begins to wear off sooner than Dupieux reckons, leaving the third act to buckle under the weight of its punchline-like resolution. Only so many times can an animation quirk being observed as fact elicit a reaction before a new kind of gag is warranted.
Albeit “Le Vertige’s” final punchline returns to the general premise of what living in a simulation would mean, how it can be profited from, and the functionally transactional nature of the matrix metaphor wholly adopted by meninist think-speak. Dupieux – whose role in Cannes has been two punchlines, two-handers, two elevator pitch premises, and under two-hour runtimes – deftly repackages these ideas into an iPhone-sized container that lands with firmer grit than the explosive finale of his prior effort, “Full Phil.” Swiftly, this climax is followed by a Pixar-lite blooper reel set to the film’s credits that suggests Dupiuex’s interests in the wider ramifications of his rendered ideology as metaphor-for-directing and actors-as-props. Nonetheless, this appearance, much like the film itself, lands in much the same manner: short-lived.
