search

Mandibles

Part of the Albertine Cinémathéque Festival

Mandibles

When Manu (Grégoire Ludig) and Jean-Gab (David Marsais) discover a housefly the size of a small footstool in the trunk of a car they just stole, they're surprised, but not for the reasons one might expect. They bluster around in dismay, saying, "Why is this in the back of the car? This screws up our plans! What do we do now?" What they don't do is ask the most obvious question: "How on earth did a fly get this big?" Manu and Jean-Gab take at face value the most extraordinary things, and get discombobulated by the everyday. They are not the brightest bulbs is the kindest way to put it. "Mandibles," the latest from French filmmaker Quentin Dupieux, takes as its premise an absurd situation and then treats it like a normal bump in the road. Manu and Jean-Gab's baffled yet incurious reaction to the fly is the first absurdity, and more and more follow in a farcical and ridiculous avalanche.

What works so well in "Mandibles" is how it's set up as a basic heist movie, using very familiar elements, so familiar they're almost tired cliches, before going completely off the rails into random demented territory. Dupieux likes to start with an outrageous situation, and then follow it wherever it takes him, anchoring it all in the familiar. Consider his film "Rubber" (2010) featuring a tire as a murderous sentient entity, or "Deerskin" (2019), where a man (Jean Dujardin) becomes unhealthily obsessed with his jacket made of deer skin. Dupieux doesn't develop these ideas so much as present them, reveling in the various possible outcomes of such a weird event. He seems to start with a question: "What would happen if ... ?" His films can seem like one-trick ponies, repeating the same joke over and over, but there's something refreshing and also humorous about Dupieux's outlook, a mish-mash of Dada and Eugène Ionesco and Franz Kafka, with some Salvador Dalí thrown in; he creates a space out of the banal and everyday where unexplainable things happen, where inanimate objects take on intelligence and agency, where two dumbbells see a giant fly and their first thought is: "She would make a perfect drone. We'll be rich!"

— Sheila O’Malley, rogerebert.com

Mandibles

Tue November 29, 2022, 7:30 PM, Muenzinger Auditorium

Belgium, France; 2020; in French; 77 min, digital • official site

Director: Quentin Dupieux, Writer: Quentin Dupieux, Cast: Grégoire Ludig, David Marsais, Adèle Exarchopoulos, India Hair, Bruno Lochet

recommend

Tickets

10 films for $60 with punch card
$9 general admission. $7 w/UCB student ID, $7 for senior citizens
$1 discount to anyone with a bike helmet
Free on your birthday! CU Cinema Studies students get in free.

Parking

Pay lot 360 (now only $1/hour!), across from the buffalo statue and next to the Duane Physics tower, is closest to Muenzinger. Free parking can be found after 5pm at the meters along Colorado Ave east of Folsom stadium and along University Ave west of Macky.

RTD Bus

Park elsewhere and catch the HOP to campus

International Film Series

(Originally called The University Film Commission)
Established 1941 by James Sandoe.

First Person Cinema

(Originally called The Experimental Cinema Group)
Established 1955 by Carla Selby, Gladney Oakley, Bruce Conner and Stan Brakhage.

C.U. Film Program

(AKA The Rocky Mountain Film Center)
First offered degrees in filmmaking and critical studies in 1989 under the guidance of Virgil Grillo.

Celebrating Stan

Created by Suranjan Ganguly in 2003.

C.U. Department of Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts

Established 2017 by Chair Ernesto Acevedo-Muñoz.

Thank you, sponsors!
Boulder International Film Festival
Department of Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts

Looking for a gift for a friend?
Buy a Frequent Patron Punch Card for $60 at any IFS show. With the punch card you can see ten films (a value of $90).

We Want Your Feedback

Cox & Kjølseth
: Filmmaker Alex Cox & Pablo Kjølseth discuss film topics from their own unique perspectives.

Z-briefs
: Pablo and Ana share Zoom-based briefs on what's currently playing at IFS

Search IFS schedules

Index of visiting artists

Mon Apr 1, 2024

Hot Shots! Part Deux

At Muenzinger Auditorium

Sat Apr 20, 2024

Super Mario Bros.

At Muenzinger Auditorium

more on 35mm...