Reality (2014 film)

Reality
Film poster (c) Kevos Van Der Meiren, Republique
Directed by	Quentin Dupieux
Written by	Quentin Dupieux
Produced by	Gregory Bernard Diane Jassem Josef Lieck Kevos Van Der Meiren
Starring	Alain Chabat Jonathan Lambert Élodie Bouchez Eric Wareheim John Glover Jon Heder
Cinematography	Quentin Dupieux
Edited by	Quentin Dupieux
Music by	Thomas Garner
Production companies	Realitism Films Rubber Films
Distributed by	Diaphana Distribution (France)
Release dates	August 28, 2014 (2014-08-28) (Venice) February 18, 2015 (2015-02-18) (France)
Running time	87 minutes
Countries	France Belgium
Languages	French English
Budget	$2.1 million
Box office	$424,000

Reality (French: Réalité) is a 2014 French-Belgian surreal comedy-drama film written and directed by Quentin Dupieux. The film premiered in the Horizons section at the 71st Venice International Film Festival on August 28, 2014. It stars Alain Chabat, Jonathan Lambert, Élodie Bouchez, Eric Wareheim, John Glover and Jon Heder.

Plot

A wannabe director is given 48 hours by a producer to find the best groan of pain, worthy of an Oscar, as the only condition to back his film. Meanwhile, reality, dreams, and fiction repeatedly overlap.

Cast

• Alain Chabat as Jason Tantra
• Jonathan Lambert as Bob Marshall
• Élodie Bouchez as Alice Tantra
• Kyla Kenedy as Reality
• Eric Wareheim as Henri
• John Glover as Zog
• Jon Heder as Dennis
• Matt Battaglia as Mike
• Susan Diol as Gaby
• Bambadjan Bamba as Tony
• Patrick Bristow as Klaus
• Sandra Nelson as Isabella
• Carol Locatell as Lucienne
• Erik Passoja as Billie
• Jonathan Spencer as Blue
• Lola Delon as Zog's Assistant
• Roxane Mesquida as Awards Hostess
• Michel Hazanavicius as Award Presenter
• Brad Greenquist as Jacques
• Axelle Cummings as The Receptionist
• Brandon Gage as Serge
• Raevan Lee Hanan as Luci

Thomas Bangalter, husband of Bouchez and former member of Daft Punk, has a cameo in the film. He plays the patient in the dermatologist's waiting room.

Production

Music

The soundtrack consists of only the first five minutes of "Music With Changing Parts" by Philip Glass.

This track by Philip Glass dates back to 1971. When you listen to it, in the film, it looks very simple but in reality it’s a piece of almost 1h30 that keeps evolving in a subtle way. I only use the first five minutes. I could have made a Canada Dry music that imitates Philip Glass but it would have been much less inspired.

I listened to Philip Glass’s entire discography. I was looking for the perfect thing and I fell in love with it. Given its duration, the idea at the beginning was to use several passages of the song, especially since we had managed to negotiate the rights with the publishers. But during the assembly I realized that if we do not have the start, the track is incomprehensible.

This way of using the first five minutes of the song creates an impression of endless loop, it becomes almost distressing. There is never a climax, we always come back to the same point. I came to this conclusion very quickly, on the set, even before thinking of Philip Glass. I did not want to do a BO, to accompany the film with small musical intentions as we usually do. You needed one piece of music that keeps coming back.

— Quentin Dupieux

Reception

Critical reception

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 64% based on 25 reviews, with an average rating of 6.13/10. The French cinema site AlloCiné gave the film a rating of 3.6/5 stars based on 32 reviews.

External links

• Official website
• Reality at IMDb
• Reality at Rotten Tomatoes