Directors Fiona Gordon and Dominique Abel have been about their peculiar filmmaking style and content for years, which by now has to be considered a signature. In their latest film, The Falling Star, which is showing at the 2023 Locarno Film Festival, they are joined by cast members who must have been specially selected or innately attuned to the peculiarity of the couple’s storytelling.
As fans of their work will surely expect, the directing pair play characters bearing their first names. Abel is Dom. Gordon is Fiona. There’s a small twist this time: because this is a film featuring a double, Abel is also Boris, a man whose resemblance to Dom forms an important part of the plot.
Back in his youth, Boris was an activist whose bomb attack made the news. Years later, he’s become a bartender at the film’s eponymous bar. His past comes calling one night in the shape of a man with a gun. This is the film’s very first scene, the texture of which reveals the flavour of wackiness that follows. To announce what he knows about his bartender, he opens a newspaper in such a manner that Boris can read it. He knows who the bartender is, he says, and then produces a gun, which he aims.
The gun goes off but so does the shooter’s arm. It’s a prosthetic arm clutching the gun. He screams in pain and runs out—but he returns to grab the fallen limb a few moments later.
It’s ridiculous, but it’s the type of film where ridiculousness is an asset. “He lost his arm but his legs are fine,” says Tim (Philippe Martz), after chasing after the man with the gun and failing to catch him. Tim is a friend of Boris and his partner Kayoko (Kaori Ito); he also guards their bar.
In any case, something must be done. Boris’s cover has been blown. The first option is to skip town, but they get lucky when they come across Dom, a hapless character whose sole usefulness appears to be that he looks just like Boris.
So begins this tale of suspense wrapped in silliness. Will the gunman return? How will Boris become Dom and vice versa? The answer to the first question is you betcha. The second question’s answer is circuitous by design.
The film’s verbal and visual gags are numerous. In one scene, a paramedic comes to get a killer and he is asked why he is alone. “Budget cuts,” goes the deadpan reply. But the chief wonderful scene is one in which a man and a woman wear another man’s coat while he sleeps. It is a wonderful bit of physical comedy. Chaplin, Keaton, or Tati — Abel and Gordon’s avowed heroes — would be proud. Another winning bit involves a woman attempting to kill a man with a heart problem by getting him to hop around a little too vigorously.
The film’s central conflict comes to involve Dom’s wife, Fiona. She is a private investigator. Gordon plays her as not quite competent, but she does know how to piece clues together and she has a knack for getting lucky. She, of course, has her own paranoia, as does everyone else in this rather unusual picture.
Behind the film’s gauche humour, there is a political undertone. There were bomb attacks in 1986 in Paris. The gag about budget cuts is part of a side tale involving a street protest. But this isn’t a film encouraging its audience to spend hours discussing politics. Even its narrative and its contrivances are beside the point. The filmmakers have spoken about their disavowal of pessimism.
Thus, inevitably, The Falling Star is a vehicle for joy. Where other films advertise verisimilitude, this one is quite conscious of its playacting. From their debut picture back in 2009, Abel and Gordon have mapped out their territory. Their background in the circus comes into play frequently. There is a hint of darkness in their current work that recalls the eccentricity of the Coen brothers.
But the acrid edge of the Americans is sanded off. The Belgian duo are not especially cruel to their characters, even the less than clueless/saintly ones. There isn’t a problem too big it cannot be solved with a dance routine. And the film’s last one is particularly winning.
There may be more serious films, but there is no other film blessed and cursed with the zaniness of Fiona Gordon and Dominique than this one. It is its own category of artistry. Their artistry might have brought in more viewers in the silent era the directors obviously love so much. Today, their method automatically excludes a significant number of audience members outside of Europe. But one suspects Abel and Gordon know this and have made peace with the intrinsic limitation of their decidedly throwback methods.
Directors, screenwriters: Fiona Gordon, Dominique Abel
Cast: Fiona Gordon, Dominique Abel, Kaori Ito, Philippe Martz, Bruno Romy
Producers: Christie Molia, Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon
Executive producer: Christie Molia
Production manager: Patrick Armisen
Cinematography: Pascale Marin
Sales: Mk 2 Films
Venue: Locarno Film Festival (Piazza Grande)
In French
98 minutes
