Céline (Céline Fuhrer), Thomas (Thomas Scimeca), and Maxence (Maxence Tual) take a bath together in riotously silly anarchic French farce
CINÉSALON: APNÉE (Jean-Christophe Meurisse, 2016)
French Institute Alliance Française, Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Tuesday, February 14, $13, 4:00 & 7:30
Series continues Tuesdays through February 21
212-355-6100
fiaf.org
FIAF’s “Comedy on Film: What Makes the French Laugh?” series continues on Valentine’s Day with Jean-Christophe Meurisses’s Apnée, a riotous, ludicrous, hysterical, and often cringeworthy absurdist fable about an anarchic trio of friends/lovers who flit about France doing anything they want, unaware of the consequences of their actions. Céline (Céline Fuhrer), Thomas (Thomas Scimeca), and Maxence (Maxence Tual) are all id, no ego and superego, as they live in their own reality, separate from the rest of what is considered conventional society. Wearing wedding dresses, they try to get married; seeking to relax, they take a bath together in a storefront window; in search of a family, they storm in on an older, empty nest couple. Indeed, they are like three children who don’t know any better, who haven’t reached basic levels of adulthood, but at their core, they just want to be happy, and what’s wrong with that? Writer-director Meurisses’s feature debut, which was nominated for Best First Film at the Cannes Film Festival (the Golden Camera) and the Lumière Awards as well as the Queer Palm, is extremely silly, essentially a series of crazy vignettes, some that work a whole lot better than others, with lovely cinematography by Javier Ruiz Gomez, from Céline, Thomas, and Maxence (well, body doubles, anyway) ice skating naked while wearing Mexican wrestler masks to the three of them dressed in white in a rowboat on a beautiful lake. Apnée — the title refers to both sleep apnea as well as the French phrase “la plongée en apnée,” or “free-diving” — is screening February 14 at 4:00 and 7:30 in Florence Gould Hall, with the later show introduced by actor Edward Akrout; both screenings will be followed by a party and prize drawing. “Comedy on Film: What Makes the French Laugh?” concludes February 21 with Quentin Dupieux’s Reality, with writer and photographer Calypso introducing the 7:30 show.