Years ago, at a film festival far far away, I went to see a very strange film called Deerskin. Starring Jean Dujardin and Adèle Haenel in the surreal comedic journey of a homicidal leather jacket, I didn’t quite know what to make of it, but I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. I might say the same of Yannick, the 2023 absurdist comedy directed by French DJ-turned director Quentin Dupieux (Rubber, Smoking Causes Coughing).
Clocking in at a lean 67 minutes, the film has a deceptively simple premise. Yannick (Raphaël Quenard), a night watchman for a parking garage, has taken the night off and set off on a long commute to attend a boulevard play on Paris’ Right Bank. Dissatisfied with the mediocre performance he’s presented with, he does what would be unthinkable (if supremely tempting) to most of us and loudly expresses his displeasure to the incredulous cast (Pio Marmaï, Sebastien Chassagne, Blanche Gardin). The sparsely populated audience doesn’t seem terribly phased … this “performance” surely couldn’t be any less entertaining than what they’ve been watching on stage.
After a protracted negotiation of sorts, Yannick is kicked out, but retrieving his jacket from the coat check he overhears the cast getting some laughs at his expense – an offense that simply won’t stand. Storming back into the theatre with the gun stashed in his jacket, he holds the cast and the audience hostage, insisting on writing a new play for them to perform on the spot. To reveal much more about the plot would certainly spoil the proceedings, but suffice it to say that both more and less occur than the viewer might imagine.
The spareness of the production owes much to the work of its leading man. Relative newcomer Quenard acquits himself admirably. Nominated for two César awards this year (including for his performance here), the actor remains supremely watchable whether he’s brandishing a gun and making grand pronouncements or slowly typing one handed and puzzling over how to work a laptop. In the course of one particularly enjoyable sequence, Yannick wanders around the theatre chatting with the audience, doing an absurd sort of approximation of stand-up crowd work. Much has been made in the French press of Quenard’s broad provincial accent, which surely works in his favour here as he represents something of the everyman, unimpressed by the pretentious artistic mores of a theatrical world that demands, rather than captivates his attention.
That tension between spectacle and spectator provides the central commentary of the film, and we get to live vicariously through Yannick’s hijacked staging. There is something thrilling about watching the unspoken rules of the theatre being broken so brazenly. Haven’t we all sat politely through a play (or film) or two, fantasizing we had the guts to walk out? Of course we don’t, but here is Yannick to live out those dark fantasies in just a very small way. Yannick doesn’t care about anyone’s artistic justifications or societal conventions. He’s got one day off, he came to be entertained, and he’s going to get what he came for. One way or the other.
While the film never quite arrives at a satisfactory conclusion, it does provide an entertaining respite, and plenty of food for thought. Dupieux seems to have plenty to offer. One of the most prolific directors working in France today, he often churns out multiple films a year. Yannick, filmed in secret in just 6 days, premiered at the Locarno Film Festival just months before his latest film, fantastical Salvador Dalí biopic Daaaaaalí! premiered in Venice. Acting as his own writer, cinematographer, and editor clearly allows Dupieux to work with incredible speed, as well as maintaining a high degree of creative control over his projects. Working alongside his wife, the talented art director Joan Le Boru (Love, Death & Robots), surely doesn’t hurt.
Not one to rest on his laurels, he has recently completed production on the upcoming feature film Á Notre Beau Métier, once again starring Quenard alongside Léa Seydoux and Louis Garrel, with a script called Braces on deck. I look forward to whatever surreal and unimaginable scenarios these films have in store.
Yannick is available to stream on MUBI from April 5th.
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