Combining savage archetypes with spot-on wit, Slack Bay is a fun, peculiar romp with deeper conceits lurking beneath the surface.
Slack Bay(Ma Loute)
✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
France, Germany, Belgium · 2016
2h 2m
Director Bruno Dumont
Starring Fabrice Luchini, Juliette Binoche, Valeria Bruni‑Tedeschi, Jean-Luc Vincent
Genre Comedy
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Summer, 1910. Bumbling inspectors Machin and Malfoy investigate the mysterious disappearances of several tourists on the beautiful beaches of Slack Bay, where a strange community of fishermen lives. This savagely funny absurdist film takes its inspiration from the likes of Peter Sellers and Monty Python.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
The Film Stage by Giovanni Marchini Camia
Disappointingly, the film feels like someone trying very hard to imitate Li’l Quinquin, pulling off but a pallid counterfeit.
The A.V. Club by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky
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.
Though the farce is occasionally funny, it's as bloated and windy as its comedy policeman Inspector Machin.
Screen International by Jonathan Romney
This knowingly excessive brew of cartoonish knockabout and macabre comedy horror just isn’t that funny.
The Playlist by Nikola Grozdanovic
From the performances to the repetitive jokes and bizarre actions that have little bearing on anything, Slack Bay exhausts you with its intense spirit.
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
Ma Loute is a fascinatingly made film, theatrically extravagant and precise, although perhaps a little over-extended.
None of it seems to make much sense, though it’s clear that the absurdity is no accident.
Slack Bay is half as long as Quinquin, but still feels too long. Major ensemble scenes (a family banquet, a service on the beach) dawdle indulgently, as if waiting for the joke to start.
The Hollywood Reporter by Todd McCarthy
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.
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