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Li'l Quinquin
P'tit Quinquin
Directed by
Bruno Dumont
Produced by Rachid Bouchareb, Jean Bréhat, and Muriel Merlin
Written by Bruno Dumont
Produced by Rachid Bouchareb, Jean Bréhat, and Muriel Merlin
Written by Bruno Dumont
With:
Alane Delhaye, Lucy Caron, Bernard Pruvost, Philippe Jore, Philippe Peuvion, Lisa Hartmann, Julien Bodard, Corentin Carpentier, and Pascal Fresch
Cinematography:
Guillaume Deffontaines
Editing: Bruno Dumont and Basile Belkhiri
Editing: Bruno Dumont and Basile Belkhiri
Runtime:
206 min
Release Date: 18 September 2014
Aspect Ratio: 2.39 : 1
Color: Color
Release Date: 18 September 2014
Aspect Ratio: 2.39 : 1
Color: Color
An off-kilter, small-town, murder-mystery comedy from Bruno Dumont (Humanity, Twentynine Palms, Camille Claudel 1915) which plays like Twin Peaks crossed with Moonrise Kingdom by way of The White Ribbon—though nothing in this episodic comedy is as board or extreme as anything Lynch, Anderson, or Haneke would put on screen. Originally made as a four-part series for French television, but released as a long film in other countries, Dumont's look at small-town life is both warm and acerbic.
Bernard Pruvost and Philippe Jore play two bumbling rural cops on the trail of a serial killer who leaves the victims' body parts stuffed inside farm animals. But, like Twin Peaks, the whodunit is not what's important. This is a character study about the inhabitants of a very specific provincial community, which also comments on the country's national character. Through the police investigation, we meet the odd folks who live in Pas-de-Calais. The cast is mostly made up of non-actors from that area, and most of them have some kind of physical or mental impairment. Most of everything that unfolds is witnessed and absorbed, rather dispassionately, by a gang of local kids. Their de facto leader is P’tit Quinquin (Alane Delhaye); both a little shit and a sweet boy. This duality in Li'l Quinquin's character sums up the collective nature of everyone in his small, working-class town. They are presented neither with reverence nor condemnation; we laugh at them without mocking them, and we judge them while we also try to understand where they're coming from.
Bernard Pruvost and Philippe Jore play two bumbling rural cops on the trail of a serial killer who leaves the victims' body parts stuffed inside farm animals. But, like Twin Peaks, the whodunit is not what's important. This is a character study about the inhabitants of a very specific provincial community, which also comments on the country's national character. Through the police investigation, we meet the odd folks who live in Pas-de-Calais. The cast is mostly made up of non-actors from that area, and most of them have some kind of physical or mental impairment. Most of everything that unfolds is witnessed and absorbed, rather dispassionately, by a gang of local kids. Their de facto leader is P’tit Quinquin (Alane Delhaye); both a little shit and a sweet boy. This duality in Li'l Quinquin's character sums up the collective nature of everyone in his small, working-class town. They are presented neither with reverence nor condemnation; we laugh at them without mocking them, and we judge them while we also try to understand where they're coming from.