Cut!, by Michel Hazanavicius, is irresistibly funny (review)

The director of The Artist remakes a Japanese graduation film with a strong concept and signs a crazy comedy where his dirty kid side works wonders.

In May 2022, Michel Hazanavicius, Romain Duris, Bérénice Bejo, Finnegan Oldfield, Gregory Gadebois and Jean-Pascal Zad opened the Cannes festival with a comedy filled with zombies: Cut!

It will be broadcast this Sunday, for the first time unencrypted, on France 2, and First recommend it to you. Besides, all of the channel's special Cannes festival programming is worth it: just before Cut!scheduled for 11 p.m., it’s the French thriller event The Night of the 12th which will be offered to viewers.

Michel Hazanavicus: “The filming of Coupez! was a real playground!”

We're not going to lie. The start of Cut! is scary…and not for the right reasons. In the zombie film that is unfolding before our eyes, the acting of the actors is more than haphazard and raises eyebrows and leaves us fearing the worst. Before understanding that this is only the first trick played by Hazanavicius with this remake of Don't cut! (cult Japanese film released on the sly in France in 2019) which is based on a concept as simple as it is implacable.

A three-part waltz: first this zombie film where approximation reigns supreme, then behind the scenes of its production and finally the making-of of the shooting, where we relive the first part under different angles. The result turns out to be irresistibly funny. Certainly the pleasure will be lessened for connoisseurs of the original. But after a commissioned film (The Forgotten Prince), Hazanavicius is not content to manage this remake in cushy mode. He seizes it by revisiting his own journey.

Cut! playing with a multitude of types of humor (physics, absurd, situations, jokes, etc.), we find scents of American Classof My friendsofOSS and Formidable. The filmmaker unleashes his dirty kid side but never loses control, relying on the strength of his direction of actors (it takes talent on both sides of the camera to play falsely and Romain Duris, Bérénice Bejo, Finnegan Oldfield, Gregory Gadebois, Jean-Pascal Zadi & co have no shortage of them) and his desire to arouse emotion beyond laughter. This part divided our editorial staff. But the laughter festival that precedes wins the day.

Z (like Z) changes title to “Cut!”