La terre de la folie

Can a documentary about suicide and (occasionally gruesome) murders also be funny? It can if it is made by the idiosyncratic French director Luc Moullet. In the thinly-populated area where he lives, the French part of the Southern Alps, the number of suicides and murders is extremely high. Moullet goes looking for the causes of these often irrational actions. On the map, he points to a ‘pentagon of madness’: five villages centred around Digne. Against picturesque backgrounds, he interviews the inhabitants about the crimes of the past century. Their stories are sober, even when they are personally involved, as if it is folklore instead of reality. The humour is largely to be found in the commentary texts by Moullet, who doesn’t use a voice-over but, as often in his work, is on-screen himself. He introduces himself with the statement that he always lives in a slightly parallel reality. Just like the people he portrays.

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