Incredible but True

French fabulist Quentin Dupieux returns with a goofball comedy involving time travel, the pandemic and one man’s robotic penis.

In the latest tale from the ever-expanding Dupieux loopy-verse, middle-aged couple Alain (Alain Chabat) and Marie (Léa Drucker, Two of Us, MIFF 2020) move to a tasteful new modern house in the suburbs, where they discover – what else – a de-ageing time-travel tunnel conveniently located in the basement. Time turns inside out, lives turn upside down, and Alain’s work buddy (Benoît Magimel) arrives with his all-new electronic phallus.

Since his indelible work as electronic musician Mr. Oizo, Dupieux (Deerskin, MIFF 2019; Rubber, MIFF 2010) has gone on to carve out a distinctively eccentric filmmaking career, moving from tales of murderous car tyres to magical jackets with a gleefully skewed, though decidedly deadpan, eye for the surreal. Incredible but True finds the filmmaker channelling the time-flux of the pandemic, refracting our collective malaise through his signature reality-eschewing playfulness. Fans of the cine-philosophical antics of Charlie Kaufman, Spike Jonze and Yorgos Lanthimos won’t want to miss a second of this.

“A playful, compelling twist on an enduring sci-fi trope … Part of the fun of Dupieux’s film is to try to wrap your head around the possibilities.” – The Film Stage