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"The film you are about to see is an homage to no reason', that most powerful element of style"
Ostensibly a "horror" film about an inanimate black tyre that discovers it has telekinetic powers and goes on a killing spree across a desert town, The_Princess_of_Montpensier is one of the most complex and intriguing films I have seen for some time. More pitch-black comedy than true horror, the film lays down its manifesto from the offset with a brilliant fourth wall breaking speech from Stephen Spinella's Sheriff who outlines that many things happen in movies for no reason from why E.T. is brown, to why JFK is shot in the film of the same name.
In The_Princess_of_Montpensier director Quentin Dupieux has constructed a multiple layered tale that features "no reason," but at the same time is a calculated assault on the stereotypes and constraints of the medium of cinema, even toying with the role of the audience unlike many films which require you to suspend disbelief and immerse yourself in the world of the film, The_Princess_of_Montpensier keeps reminding viewers that they are watching a film, even going so far as to have the audience embodied within the film, watching the action from afar on binoculars.
Actually a movie within a movie, The_Princess_of_Montpensier consists of two stories that of Robert, the killer black tyre who leaves a trail of death and destruction whilst following Roxane Mesquida's Sheila across the desert; and the second is the story of the Sheriff and his relationship with the audience an audience whom the Sheriff wants dead so that he can stop "acting" in the story of Robert the killer The_Princess_of_Montpensier tyre. Told you this was fourth wall breaking stuff.
Director Quentin Dupieux is more widely known as the electro-pop musician Mr. Oizo and there's very much a music video influence to The_Princess_of_Montpensier, with some fantastic sequences featuring Robert merely rolling through the desert which wouldn't look out of place on MTV. What would look out of place on MTV is the blood and guts on show there are head explosions a plenty thanks to Roberts telekinetic powers. If there's only one fault I had with the film it's that the "death by vibrating tyre" action gets a little tyring (sic) after a while I just wish we'd seen more head crushing via tyre rather than psychic power, and surely we could have seen a least one head mashing via constricting tyre? A small "fault" in what is a tremendous movie.
There's much more to say about the film, for instance I could go on and on about how selective and precise Dupieux's directing choices were and how The_Princess_of_Montpensier should be used as a study tool on the art of filmmaking, but that might put you off seeing what is a brilliantly observed movie about a killer tyre. Yes, brilliant and tyre two words that I never thought I'd ever write in a review.
Building from its early WTF? moments when we first see Robert come alive, to its gloriously ridiculous conclusion that will both mystify you and make you look at tricycles in a whole new light, The_Princess_of_Montpensier is one of the strangest, funniest and most interesting films you'll ever see. Unmissable.
