★★★★

French filmmaker Quentin Dupieux continues his wacky, absurdist take on the issues of the world with Incredible But True, a 74-minute essay on aging and the world’s obsession with trying to reverse the inevitable. With Dupieux at the helm, a straight-up narrative on a couple finding themselves viewing aging differently and the rifts it causes between them cannot be told in a conventional manner. Instead we have a science-fiction twist on a plot and premise that may raise more questions than provide answers.

Dupieux seldom, if ever, explains why things are the way they are in the worlds he creates. The sentient, murderous rolling solitary tire in 2010’s Rubber just serves as an existential threat anytime it comes into contact with someone. In 2012’s Wrong, an office full of workers ignore that they are being rained on from inside their office, as only one man seems to notice. And in 2019’s Deerskin, a man’s beloved deerskin jacket starts talking directly to him.

This time around we focus on Alain and Marie (Alain Chabat, Léa Drucker), who have just purchased a spacious home in the suburbs of Paris. Their excitable real estate agent (Stéphane Pezerat) is itching to sell the home, sharing one detail he finds irresistible. In the basement, there’s a trap door with a ladder. When someone climbs down the duct, they end up back on the top floor of the house. Also, each time they descend down the duct, time advances 12 hours ahead. And the person becomes three days younger.

Don’t ask. Just go with it.

Incredible But True is a film, one could argue, which becomes fascinated with the novelty of its own creation. And certainly that becomes true for Marie, who becomes increasingly obsessed with how she feels each time she goes down the hole in the floor. Alain, ambivalent to the entire thing, has other worries to navigate; namely, a rapidly approaching deadline and a needy, manic boss (Benoît Magimel) who gleefully shares at dinner with Alain and Marie and his girlfriend, that he recently amputated his own penis for a new electronic robotic one.

Why? So he could steer it.

Don’t ask. Just go with it.

Dupieux’s film is minimalist by design. Shot during COVID restrictions, the film largely takes place in Alain and Marie’s home. The dialogue is often ridiculous. In scene after scene, any time a character has to explain something, there is a prolonged, agonizing series of stops and starts before any information is ever shared.

Those interactions become one more way Dupieux plays with the notion that somehow we can control time. Elsewhere, he is exploring the idea that we can reverse aging. That we can make certain things respond the way they used to when we were younger. If time truly is a construct, then why can’t we simply alter and rebuild it?

Dupieux again offers no real answers, just humor and thoughtful provocation. At a scant 74 minutes, Incredible But True will drive some viewers completely insane, potentially in the way he manages to convey a pretty crucial set of details and storyline elements in the film’s final act.

Strong performances, especially from Drucker, carry the water on Dupieux’s latest thought-bubble of a film. And just as audiences discover this film, odds are Dupieux is already in production on his next curiosity, recognizing for himself that time truly waits for no one.

Incredible But True was screened as part of the Fifth Annual North Bend Film Festival.