#1 Satirical and political comedies, that claim a formal hybridity
Yves by Benoit Forgeard
« I want to create comic forms that confuse the viewer as well as they amuse him » Benoit Forgeard
From the early 2000s, Benoit Forgeard's movies have been set in a reality stylized by the use of artifice in order to better understand the world's failings. In all his films, Forgeard sets up comic tales that explore the mutations of the 21st century : the political debate in Gaz de France, the media acceleration in La course nue, and above all the AI and technological omnipresence which, from Stève André to Yves, has become a real obsession. The diversity of the theme his movies deal with is the source of an ironic and satirical tone that allows Benoit Forgeard to disrupt reality to better question it.
Forgeard's third feature, Yves, released on a hot day in June 2019, has a refrigerator as its eponymous character. This oxymoron resonates with the logic of distortion of reality and humor that runs through all of his work. Yves tells the story of Jérem, a young loser who moves into his grandmother's house to compose his first rap record. He meets So, a mysterious investigator for the « Digital Cool » start-up. She convinces him to test Yves, an intelligent refrigerator, which is supposed to simplify his life. We are then plunged into a near future where household appliances are characters in their own right.
From this moment on, the fridge Yves will quickly stir up trouble: from bugs to love disputes, the scenario draws on the springs of misunderstanding and vaudeville, at the same time as it delivers a comment on new technologies and the tyranny of celebrity. In this respect, one of the tastiest scenes is the copyright lawsuit, to find out who, Jérem or Yves, signed the rapper's latest hit.
The trademark of Forgeard, whose films are produced by Emmanuel Chaumet (Ecce Films), lies in his ability to mix in his scenarios the reality of society and his overflowing imagination. The movie captivates by its scenic inventions, the intelligence of the dialogues and the soft madness of the actors. In this sense, the fridge, the film's protagonist, far from overshadowing the actors, magnifies them (William Lebghil and Philippe Katerine together form a duo as incongruous as it is funny).
Full of ideas, funny all the way through, Yves is a movie that is seemingly simple but which carries many lines of thought about society. Closing the Directors' Fortnight in Cannes, while Le Daim opened it, Yves shows, in the same way as Quentin Dupieux's movies, that a kind of French Touch, characterized by a nonsensical approach, also exists in the contemporary french auteur comedy, and we can only be delighted.