Critic Reviews

The range of tones and moods, like the range of situations, characters, and actors, is so wide, so recklessly self-contradicting, that it turns a tautly crafted local story into a comprehensive vision.

Ma Loute is a fascinatingly made film, theatrically extravagant and precise, although perhaps a little over-extended.

Unhinged and witty, Slack Bay is one of those rare movies that looks like it was fun to make, and is even more fun to watch.

Combining savage archetypes with spot-on wit, Slack Bay is a fun, peculiar romp with deeper conceits lurking beneath the surface.

In Dumont’s version of agnostic mysticism, paradoxes have often stood in for miracles, but here, where the laws of physics follow Looney Tunes rules, the secular miracle is that Billie is more or less normal — the only character who isn’t a cartoon.

Bruno Dumont's formalism is presently charged with a spark of simultaneously controlled and spontaneous mystery.

Dumont's characters' motives are consequently hard to divine, despite convincingly twitchy performances from French actors Fabrice Luchini and Juliette Binoche. So while I do recommend Slack Bay, I must warn you: this is a misanthropic comedy that features cannibalism, weird religious overtones, and a lot of goony pratfalls.

More weirdly fascinating than genuinely good, this beautifully made, bracingly eccentric and often arch film will generate a measure of strong support but will bewilder more.

As it turns out, modes of farce and fantasy enable Mr. Dumont to pull the rug out from under the viewer in a number of new and upsetting ways. Be prepared.

Though the combination of social critique and unhinged laughs doesn’t always jell, the movie is quite gloriously a thing unto itself, even as it draws upon obvious inspirations.