AU POSTE! (KEEP AN EYE OUT) (France/Belgium 2018) ***1/2

Directed by Quentin Dupieux

AU POSTE by writer/director Quentin Dupieux is a weird film.  For those unfamiliar with the director’s work, it would be good to know that he has made two oddball movies called RUBBER about a killer runaway tire and REALITE an equally odd film about a director getting finance for a film if he can record the perfect shout.  AU POSTE! treads similar territory.  For those unfamiliar with Dupieux’s brand of films, one can be in for a real treat if one loves absurdist films.

The prologue sees a man in his underwear conducting an orchestra.  Police arrive and chase him.  Then…..

AU POSTE! (which means AT THE OFFICE, the original title) begins like quite the normal film, say as in Claude Miller’s GARDE A VUE a film in which a police interrogation makes the entire film’s running time.  In AU POSTE!,  chief inspector, Commissaire Buron (Benoit Poelvoorde) is, when the film opens, questioning a suspect, Louis Fugain (Gregoire Ludig) on the death of a victim in a pool of blood in the middle of the street.  It is going to be a long night.  As the inspector says: “ a fool at the wrong place and the wrong time.”

Director Dupieux engages the audience with a seemingly list of happenings as confessed by Louis.  A lot of these are everyday stuff like buying crisps, going to bed with his wife, taking a breather outside and so on.  At one point during the questioning, Buron even tells Louis: “I have never been so bored shitless during an investigation.”

While stepping out for 20 minutes to meet his son, Buron asks a fellow cop, Philippe (Marc Fraize) to keep an eye on Louis.

Here comes the strange and weirdness characteristic of a Dupieux story.

- Philippe has only one eye, and he has to use the other to keep an eye out for Louis.

• While doing that, Philippe trips on an open drawer and the set square he is carrying pierces his other eye and he dies
• In the interrogation, Louis tells Buron that he stepped outside his flat when he discovered the body.  This is the time when he meets Philippe’s wife, Fiona (Anais Dermoustier) though he had not met Philippe till 3 days in the future.
• When Buron smokes, smoke emits from chest as he has a hole in his chest.
• Louis keeps seeing the ghost of Philippe appear to him several times.

There are a lot of other minor weird things that go on like the stuck mosquito can spray and Buron’s wife who keeps seeing Louis entering and leaving his flat several times.  Louis also attempts to heat away his fingertips so that no fingerprints can be left behind.

If everything seems all too weird, there is a logical explanation to all this, which comes at the end of the film.  With all the craziness going on, the obvious logical explanation comes as a bit of a letdown.  Still, director Dupieux has kept his audience in awe and surprise for the majority of his film, and that in itself is quite a feat.

Trailer: