When it comes to satire, you can never tell whether something is going to be an enormous success or a dismal failure – and any director who respects the art of lampooning a particular aspect of culture knows that any satire worth our time is not going to be preoccupied with its prospects, but rather capturing the spirit of the era in which it was made. It is for this reason alone that we can consider Quentin Dupieux to be one of our greatest living satirists, since no one has proven themselves more capable of throwing caution to the wind and delivering something wildly unforgettable and deeply unnerving, while never losing the absurdity that comes with a story that is truly well-crafted and memorable. In the case of his most recent directorial outing, we have The Piano Accident (French: L’Accident de piano), in which we are introduced to Magalie Moureau, a world-renowned social media star with millions of fawning followers who wait in bated breath for every one of her uploads, in which she takes advantage of the fact that she cannot feel any pain to engage in a series of increasingly dangerous stunts, none of them causing any real harm to her, other than the occasional broken bone. However, her ego is far more susceptible to being bruised, which we see once she is contacted by Simone Herzog, a cutthroat journalist whose brother was involved in one of Magalie’s most recent stunts, which ended tragically. To keep her silence, Simone makes her new contact an ultimatum: she will either reveal the truth to the public, or Magalie will agree to sit down for the first interview in her entire career, something that she has avoided in fear of the public coming into contact with her deepest secrets that she has intentionally kept concealed for years. Very much in the vein of the director’s ongoing efforts to redefine the medium in his own terms, while also representing yet another step forward for him as he moves towards legitimacy, The Piano Accident is a fascinating work, functioning as another off-kilter comedy from a director who has seemingly been on a quest to perfect the art of subversive humour, and while it doesn’t have the spark of ingenuity that guided some of his other works, its nonetheless still an enticing examination of culture, handcrafted by a true visionary whose insights are as meaningful as they are shocking.

One of the many reasons we can appreciate Dupieux as a satirist is that he realises that definitive works simply do not exist. It seems like every director who intends to lampoon society and its foibles believes that everything has to be condensed into a single film, which is how we end up with overstuffed, frustratingly long works that claim to be built from the foundation of maximalist expression (which is undeniably a worthy cause when done right), which ultimately spend far too much time saying very little. For nearly two decades, Dupieux has been more focused on creating a series of shorter, snappier satires that aim for a couple of core concepts each that can then subsequently be put together to create a larger and more expansive depiction of 21st century culture, both as it stands today and how it was influenced by those who came before us. The key concept that the director is exploring in The Piano Accident is that of social media – like any good contemporary filmmaker, Dupieux doesn’t reject these platforms, but rather embraces them as a source of commentary. Magalie Moureau is just like any other young influencer who earns their living through social media engagement, where self-worth is determined by follower counts, and lifestyles are funded by the feverish admiration she acquires from viewers across the world, the great irony being that her entire existence is sheltered; she herself seems to exist only on the margins of reality. The premise itself is so simple – in fact, it’s one of the most straightforward and least chaotic in all of Dupieux’s works – which allows the director to observe more than he critiques, which is still within his wheelhouse, but shows his capacity to simmer the intensity slightly. His process here is to examine the tumultuous relationship between social media influencers and their supporters, with the former serving an audience that grows to adore them, not realising that they are unlikely to give them the time of day regardless. It’s quite shallow in its commentary, and Dupieux doesn’t go as far as someone else may have chosen, since everything is kept quite surface-level, but we can’t avoid the touches of satire that populate and guide this film towards a place of genuine brilliance at times.

While he began his career as someone who balked against the mainstream and rejected collaborations with anyone who represented the exact institutions against which he was rebelling (including the film industry – how else do we explain his directorial debut featuring a sentient rubber tire as its protagonist?), but it didn’t take terribly long for Dupieux to find kindred spirits, some of which are amongst the most recognisable and beloved actors currently working in the industry. One of his most unexpected recurring collaborators is Adèle Exarchopoulos, with whom he has now made three films. In each one of these films, the director takes everything we usually associate with Exarchopoulos as an actor and goes in a completely different direction. Under his direction, she abandons her tendency to play emotionally fragile young women trying to understand the world in which they live, and instead embraces more off-kilter, unconventional protagonists, many of whom are far from likeable in the traditional sense, but prove to be extremely compelling in their own way. Magalie is one of the most unlikable and villainous characters Exarchopoulos has played to date, but she does so with such conviction and sincerity that we are able to overlook her more questionable qualities. Her companion is played by Jérôme Commandeur, who is the polar opposite, playing a principled and calm man whose level-headed approach perfectly complements the eccentric central performance. Where Exarchopoulos plays to the rafters, Commandeur chooses to be more subdued, creating a delicate balance through which the film is able to build most of its intriguing ideas. Sandrine Kiberlain is as wonderful as ever, bringing her distinctive blend of steady stoicism punctuated by moments of frazzled frenzy to the part of the journalist taking a leap of faith, not knowing that she is plunging herself into the life of someone who is certainly not a good person. The cast is rounded out by Karim Leklou, who merely exists as a recurring annoyance to the protagonist, but still infuses the film with a sense of unconventional charm that ties everything together unexpectedly well.

Beyond his tendency to either collaborate with a specific group of actors or bring unexpected performers into the fray, there are a few additional qualities that immediately signal that we are watching a Dupieux film, most of which are found in the visual and tonal aspects of the film. By this point, it is clear that he’s trying to emulate Luis Buñuel, one of the great auteurs of the 20th century and someone who consistently and methodically set out to subvert society’s expectations in challenging and provocative ways. This is all part of the appeal of The Piano Accident, which is yet another instance of attempting to unseat expectations through a wildly offbeat story of the human condition, as seen through a vaguely perverse lens. The visual design is not as dynamic as some of the director’s other works, which create these vibrant, unforgettable tableaux that are as intriguing as they are unsettling, but we do find that the more subdued aesthetic does reflect the shallowness of Magalie’s life, showing her complete disconnection from anything even vaguely beautiful. Her house is empty, her surroundings sparse – and this minimalism is contrasted by the wall-to-wall absurdity. The writing is intentionally stilted and awkward (helped massively by the conviction of the actors to speak truth to an otherwise absurd narrative), which creates a very particular tone, one that feels recognisable, but is slightly off-kilter enough to not be entirely familiar. Dupieux makes the cinematic equivalent of the uncanny valley, works that seem to be as close an approximation to reality as we can get, but which meander around it in a way that becomes increasingly more unsettling. This works unexpectedly well for a story built around the idea of exploring the hollowness of social media, and how reality is not always present when we look towards people who make their careers online. It’s exactly what we would expect from Dupieux when working with this subject matter, but it doesn’t make The Piano Accident any less engaging, which is all part of its incredible appeal.

While it is perhaps a slightly minor work in comparison to some of his recent works (it pales in comparison to The Second Act or Yannick, which felt like the closest Dupieux has come to truly achieving complete respectability while remaining well within his self-defined artist boundaries), we still can’t deny that The Piano Accident is a tremendous work, and one that perfectly encapsulates everything that is so delightfully charming about the director’s work. Like everything he has made, this film is an acquired taste and requires the viewer to be able to leap onto a very specific wavelength, the kind that is not usually going to appeal to the widest group of viewers. Some may even say that a few of the director’s more unappealing quirks – overly loud characters, brash storylines, obvious satire – are present here, and while it can be said that he does default to a few of the more noticeable traits, the film is still distinct enough to stand on its own, containing some intriguing departures from his usual approach, while still being very much within his usual wheelhouse. It’s a fascinating and compelling film, and one that earns our affection by virtue of challenging us to look beyond the obvious and instead embrace something far more unique. It doesn’t reinvent anything particularly notable, but simply serves as yet another compelling entry into his strong body of work. It’s a masterful work in its own way, functioning as a far more compelling entry into a series of films that don’t necessarily follow the same patterns, but have traits that point towards the director’s efforts to create a body of work that acts as a mosaic of the human condition, defined by his peculiar curiosity with the more eccentric side of society. Not his most innovative work, but a welcome voyage into his strange perspective that will appeal to anyone who appreciates his style, The Piano Accident is a triumph in its own small but significant way, and worth the time of anyone who enjoys Dupieux’s strange but engaging worldview.