Keep an Eye Out

(France, Belgium / 2018 / Directed by Quentin Dupieux)

The latest film from French absurdist Quentin Dupieux (Rubber, Wrong, Deerskin) is a crime procedural that’s slightly off the rails. From its opening sequence, where a man conducts an open-air philharmonic orchestra in just red briefs before being carted away by police, Keep an Eye Out disregards audience expectations, the fourth wall, and the laws of time and space.

Fougain (Grégoire Ludig) is an ordinary man minding his own business, who, late one night, unexpectedly finds a dead body outside of his apartment. After reporting it to the police, what should be a lot of boring paperwork turns into a twisty, farcical good-cop/bad-cop interrogation. As the investigation’s only witness, Fougain is also its only suspect, and he finds himself in the position of trying to explain, on an empty stomach, how and why he happened to leave home seven times in one night before coming across a corpse. His anxiety is sky-high when his interrogator (Benoît Poelvoorde) leaves him alone with Philippe (Marc Fraize), a rookie with bizarre speech patterns and only one eye. As Fougain tells his story, his flashbacks meld with the present in ways that bring his entire reality into question. Director Quentin Dupieux hits the notes of darkness and drollery just right in this curious, inventive tale, and because of him, you may never look at a triangular ruler or an oyster the same way again.

Unrated / 1 hr 13 mins.
In French with subtitles.