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Smoking Causes Coughing film image, director Quentin Dupieux

Smoking Causes Coughing

Fumer fait tousser

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In the wake of a viscera-spilling battle with a menacing foam-rubber turtle, the superheroic, hard-smoking members of Tobacco Force are ordered to undergo a week of team-building at a remote bunker. In lieu of trading punches with arch-nemeses, they exchange outrageous campfire stories about others’ misfortunes, each of which demonstrates that Quentin Dupieux’s absurdism has multiple registers. Alas, there’s no rest for the spandex-clad, as the reigning Emperor of Evil has spotted an opportune time to annihilate the universe.

Assembling a constellation of notable French stars (including Gilles Lellouche and Anaïs Demoustier), adorning them in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers knockoff costumes, and surrounding them with janky, outdated technology, Dupieux concocts the superhero sendup that we never would’ve believed that we desperately needed. Melding the altruism commonly associated with the cape-and-cowl genre with the inherent nihilism of the director’s outré oeuvre results in one of the year’s most sublimely ridiculous films.

 

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Media Partner

Director

Quentin Dupieux

Cast

Gilles Lellouche, Anaïs Demoustier, Oulaya Amamra, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Alain Chabat, Vincent Lacoste, Jean-Pascal Zadi

Credits
Country of Origin

France

Year

2022

Language

In French with English subtitles

Film Contact
Links
19+
80 min
Comedy Drama

Book Tickets

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Credits

Producer

Hugo Sélignac

Screenwriter

Quentin Dupieux

Cinematography

Quentin Dupieux

Editor

Quentin Dupieux

Production Design

Joan Le Boru

Original Music

Quentin Dupieux