Mandibles

David Marsais and Gregoire Ludig in Mandibles

The best comedy I have seen in some time, Quentin Dupieux's Mandibles, released in the US in 2021, tells the not particularly tender story of the bonding that occurs between two sociopathic French drifters and a two foot long fly. The film features an assault, armed robberies, a dog being eaten, arson, a carjacking, a kidnapping, and humor at the expense of the disabled, but I found it to be a hilarious mashup of Dumb and Dumber and The Fly.

The previous films I have seen from Dupieux, most significantly Rubber and Deerskin, have been funny in the sense of being peculiar and Mandibles is certainly that, but it is also the first Dupieux film to have elicited belly laughs from me. I especially enjoyed the inane rapport between the two lead miscreants, Gregoire Ludig's Manu and David Marsais' Jean Gab, who reminded me of Gerard Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere as louts on the road in Bertrand Blier's Going Places. Ludig's Manu, like Depardieu's character and Oliver Hardy, is the top, a beefy sensualist who is always growling about his underfed stomach. Marsais' Jean Gab is the bottom, a slightly more sensitive soul who bonds with and trains the big bug. Truly not for everyone, but those with a tolerance for cruel humor will find delight in Mandibles.