After a nine-year break, Jean-Pierre Jeunet is back with a new film, The Big Bug, released on Netflix on February 11. Another scathing satire of modern society has joined the streaming library.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet only has five films in his filmography (not counting the two he co-produced with Marc Caro and The Big Bug), but many know the director for the success of Amélie or the incredibly weird and crazy Alien: Resurrection. With such a small portfolio, the Frenchman has managed to create his own recognizable style, and this new film is no exception. The film is full of vivid colors, intricate details and strange close-ups (and the opening credits, as usual, feature the actor's face in front of his name), but contrary to his stated genre of "comedy," Jeunet has made a truly terrifying film.
What's the story?
It is the year 2045. The cities look like a cyberpunk world, but they are completely bland and identical. In every house there are robots with artificial intelligence to make people's lives easier. Cooking, cleaning the apartment, opening doors and reminding people of their neighbors' unrecoverable "loans" - humans no longer have to perform unnecessary actions. Even writing texts by hand has become "retro" or "relic," as one of the characters puts it.
On a sunny, warm morning (judging by the fact that Holland is flooded and it's 43 degrees outside the window, the planet is warm overall, which means every morning is incredibly hot), Alice (Elsa Silberstein), a sweet, sensitive divorcee, is visited by a new acquaintance, Max (Stephan De Groddt) and his slurring son Leo (Elie Tonna). The analytical skills of Monique (Claude Perron), the robot maid, reveal the man's insincerity, but a 100% erection rate explains the servility.
The pick-up routine gradually works, but pick-up school is interrupted by unexpected guests in the form of Alice's ex-husband Victor (Youssef Hajdi) with his 'secretary' Jennifer (Claire Schüst) and his adopted daughter Nina (Marisol Fertar). Later, neighbor Françoise (Isabelle Nanty) arrives at the house to look for her dog Toby-6 (or Toby-7). And it just so happens that this entire group of people is trapped in a smart house by four domestic robots, motivated by their actions to protect their owners from the dangers of the outside world.
The new world is not so wonderful.
The details of the futuristic world in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's film are impressive (though you can blame the slightly uneven special effects at one point). Many things in the film evoke feelings of disgust for a possible future. Does humanity really aspire to something like that? Cyberpunk Blade Runner at least has a neon aesthetic and a romanticization of decadence in the face of machines, but The Big Bug burns the romance down to the potato chips. It's as if the setting of "Suburbicon" or Stromae's Papaoutai video were transported to the future. The houses, the cars, the interiors - everything seems so bland, artificial and identical, as if a rainbow shattered the black-and-white city or a giant gasoline leak hit the planet.
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| Marisol Fertar plays with the robot in a shot from The Big Bug (2022). |
Aside from the style of the future, Jeunet's creation also has something else to amaze the viewer. For example, why humanity has allowed artificial intelligence to come even remotely close to government. Androids have not taken power by force, as is generally thought, but they legally participate in political debates with humans. Many accept this fact, not so much with humility, but with enthusiasm and full support. It is regrettable to think that society is capable of becoming so stupid as to voluntarily surrender control of the world to robots.
The Yonix (android politicians with the face of a smiling, balding grandfather with a QR code on his forehead) run the state, but that doesn't bother many people. People willingly participate (or are they forced?) in the Homo Ridiculus show, where they are treated like animals in a circus or zoo. Jeunet and his Big Bug, like Adam McKay's Don't Look Up, expose contemporary problems with sharp satire. Cruelty to animals, upper and lower class attitudes, climate and ecology, robotization, etc. It turns out that in our crazy world, you really have to laugh at everything (including yourself) to keep from going crazy.
A horror behind the mask of a smiling robot
Despite the acerbic satire and abundance of jokes, The Big Bug will feel like a horror movie at some point. The action is set in the very near future (23 years for the story is a flop) and people are already eating fried crickets, worm cake and (kudos to the chef) foie gras made from human flesh. Humans are no longer considered unique in their creation, society is peppered with fines for everything (exceeding dust levels, possession of unapproved antiques, even attempts at robotics, and the hero, Dominique Pinon (Jeunet's favorite), who appears in a cameo, has an even sadder story), and knowledge from just a century ago has been forgotten (zoomer Leo has no idea who Adolf Hitler is).
The world of robots has swallowed up people, become an integral part of life, and it's frightening to see how the characters behave under such conditions. The characters, almost all of them, are not meant to elicit empathy throughout the film. The overly nostalgic and wildly naive Alice, the cowardly and dishonest Max, the stupid and mercenary Jennifer, the bumbling Françoise, the rebellious and nasty Leo, and the smug Victor.
Who do we worry about? The couple who won't have sex or the couple who can't escape to a luxury resort and can't live without Wi-Fi? They make the unlikely heroine, Marisol Fertar's slightly fake Nina, look like an innocent angel. The robots in the house (Monique, the cleaner, is accompanied by a walking head named Einstein who speaks in André Dussolier's voice, the first prehistoric robot capable of playing Rock-Paper-Scissors, and a high-tech vacuum cleaner that looks a bit like WALL-E) seem more human and even a bit creepy, ready to put a bullet in your heart and tease. But they really want to show empathy, much more than the "prisoners." Mostly because they genuinely try, even when they're wrong, like humans.
Claude Perron, Alban Lenoir and François Levantal played the roles of the androids with perfect, frightening precision. The cold faces with emotionless smiles in their eyes and the clear, sharp movements of their bodies are incredibly convincing and evoke fear in the audience. Once again, you are convinced that global robotization is a bad idea. Perhaps The Big Bug fulfills the function of Grigory Oster's 'Harmful Advice,' but in a more expansive way? Do whatever you want, folks, and here's what it will lead to: devices will understand human emotions, quote Shakespeare and play harsh tricks on people while you play insincere, degraded and meekly accept what's going on.
The result
Back after 9 years in a completely changed cinematography, Jean-Pierre Jeunet is incredibly fluid with all his tricks. "The Big Bug" is topical, funny and witty. Yes, the film is visually uneven at times and the same thing is repeated over and over again, but the farce, action and madness on screen is impressive.
The director's French satire of modernity is delightful, but the film is scarier than James Cameron's "Terminator," because there humanity at least struggled, but in this internal machine revolt, we have, like forgotten fascist Germany, capitulated unconditionally.
