Chloé ValmaryNovember 17, 2024
With “Daaaaaali!”, Quentin Dupieux explores the fanciful world of Salvador Dali, an ideal terrain for his approach to the absurd. If this daring film captures the eccentric essence of the artist, certain choices give rise to reservations among historians, such as the presence of a very marked original soundtrack.
Daaaaaali! : Quentin Dupieux is crazy about Salvador
Who better than Quentin Dupieux to tackle a Salvador Dali biopic? With “Daaaaaali!”, the director offers a completely offbeat version of the painter by following the misadventures of Judith (Anaïs Demoustier), a novice journalist who tries to obtain an interview with the elusive artist.
In almost every scene, Dali changes face and character, played successively by Édouard Baer, Jonathan Cohen, Gilles Lellouche, Didier Flamand and Pio Marmaï. This multiplicity of Dali allows us to capture the different facets of his character: charismatic, eccentric, introspective or totally unpredictable.
Through this crazy fresco, Dupieux also depicts the workings of the film industry, making fun of cynical and manipulative producers, like Jérôme (played by Romain Duris), who pushes Judith to go beyond all limits to capture the attention of Dalí.
This character embodies the pressure and sacrifices often required in the artistic environment, subtly recalling certain modern critiques of the abuse of power, while retaining the burlesque and offbeat tone specific to Dupieux.
Visually, “Daaaaaali!” is inspired by Dali's surrealist aesthetic with surprising settings and absurd settings that constantly play with perceptions. Dupieux uses quirky architecture and Russian doll scenes to illustrate the artist's strange world, where reality and illusion are constantly mixed.
By moving away from the traditional biopic, the director paints a unique portrait of the painter, playing with the collective memory and popular perception of this striking figure.
The music of discord
If “Daaaaaali!” seduced by its audacity, the use of music has aroused reservations among certain historians, in particular because of the conflicting relationship between Dali and this art. Indeed, Dali despised music, which he considered inferior to painting, to the point of breaking a violin during his studies to assert his artistic superiority, an act which led to his dismissal from the Academy of Fine Arts.
In addition to this rejection, the addition of Catalan-inspired music – here composed by Thomas Bangalter – raises questions about Dali's complex identity. Although Dali grew up in Catalonia and sometimes incorporated Catalan cultural elements into his appearance, such as his espadrilles, he only used this folklore with a certain irony.
Furthermore, Dali maintained an ambivalent relationship with his Catalan heritage: the Catalans appropriated him as an iconic figure while criticizing him for his political support for the dictator Franco, a position which cut him off from many Catalan admirers.
YES! can be seen on CANAL+.
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