Slack Bay

(Ma Loute, Bruno Dumont, France/Germany 2016, 122 min., DCP, French w/subtitles)

Rochester Premiere. The bourgeois and extremely eccentric Van Peteghem family—among them Juliette Binoche, Fabrice Luchini, and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi—have settled in for another summer at their clifftop villa overlooking the picturesque Slack Bay. Their leisurely rhythm of sunbathing and seaside constitutionals is soon interrupted by the arrival of two bumbling inspectors investigating a string of tourists gone missing (and serving full-on Keystone Kops). As the macabre mysteries mount and love blossoms between the family’s genderqueer teen and the son of a local fisherman, Binoche and company ratchet the slapstick up to eleven. It’s no wonder director Bruno Dumont (Li’l Quinquin, Camille Claudel 1915) cites Peter Sellers, Monty Python, and Laurel and Hardy as cinematic influences for his delightful foray into winking, absurdist farce.