Brace yourself, for this movie will most likely be the most confusing and also the most effectively and professionally designed film you have ever had the honor of viewing. If you thought that “Inception” was impressively hard to understand, then you are in for what can only be referred to as a mindf**k.
Quentin Dupieux (a.k.a. Mr. Oizo) is a French electronic musician, film director and absolute genius. Seriously guys, this man is by far the most unexplainably talented mind I have ever encountered. His works are simple yet complex beyond measure, minimalistic yet overflowing with lavish symbolism and meaning, basic yet they give you a whole new perspective on life itself. I could write an entire review on just this director, but that’s not what my articles are about.
“Reality” is a 2014 comedy written and directed by the aforementioned demigod of the film world. It follows the intercrossing storylines of 4 different characters: Jason (Alain Chabat), Reality (Kyla Kenedy), Henri (Eric Wareheim), and Dennis (Jon Heder (recognizable from “Napoleon Dynamite”)).
Jason is a film director that has an idea for a film he has titled “Waves” because the premise of the film is that televisions kill people using radio waves. Jason needs to find the most Oscar-worthy death groan in the world to include in his film within 48 hours, or else the filming won’t be backed. Reality is a 7-year-old girl who plays the role of a suspenseful sleeping girl in Jason’s film, but she finds a mysterious blue VCR tape inside a boar that her father shot and spends the majority of the filming and movie trying to watch it. Henri is Reality’s school superintendent who suffers from bizarre dreams involving himself dressed as a women and driving a military jeep. Henri seeks help from a dream therapist, who also happens to be the film-director’s wife. Dennis is the host of a cooking show where he is dressed as a giant rat, but he slows the filming down when he begins to suffer from an insatiable itch that is later diagnosed as an eczema attack but on the inside of his head. Jason, the film-director, is also one of the cameramen filming Dennis’s show.
I apologize for this next sentence.
This movie is a multiple-perspective-dream-sequence-film-making-nightmare where the movie you are watching is actually a movie about the simultaneous search for, creation of, and viewing of a movie about the filming of and search for the movie that you, the director, the film-maker and the characters in the film are watching.
If you had to read that more than once, then you got a taste of how this 1 hour and 35-minute-long cinema production will leave you feeling.
I can assure you that you will not be able to predict any turn this movie takes. Just when you think you understand what’s going on, the entire reality of the cinematic changes, the story shifts, and you are left feeling flabbergasted and wanting more.
If you feel like you have any intellectual sense whatsoever, I dare you to be humbled by this moving picture. Steven Hawking himself would have to take notes and then re-watch the movie and end up rewriting his notes because that’s just how complex it is.
This movie will change your entire idea about what a real movie is and will spoil any future theatric experience, as long as your brain doesn’t turn to jelly and sink into your socks before the credits roll.
If you hate thinking or having to occasionally read subtitles because you don’t speak French (like some of the characters in this movie do), then don’t bother watching this. You will not enjoy it.
If that last sentence doesn’t apply to you then watch this movie tonight; I don’t care if your family wants to take you out for dinner, just tell them that you have something important to work on and pay the $3.99 to rent this movie for 48 hours on YouTube. I have even provided you a link to it below to save you part of the hassle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRwAXcQzfFg