Effacer l'historique

Marie, Bertrand und Christine schlagen sich mit kläglichen Mini-Jobs und Schulden, verkrachten Beziehungen und Kindersorgen durch ihre faden Leben am noch faderen Stadtrand. Was es auch nicht leichter macht, ist der Alltagswahnsinn des digitalen Zeitalters. Aus unterschiedlichen Gründen (Sex-Tape, Cyber-Mobbing, Null Likes) zu Opfern geworden, beschließen die drei schließlich, der Datenkrake den Garaus zu machen. Hier wird heftig an der Satire-Schraube gedreht, werden böse Scherze getrieben und irre Witze inszeniert sowie vielfach wohlgesetzte Pfeile ins Zwerchfell des auf zahllosen Screens herumtatschenden Users geschossen. Bis keiner mehr steht. (Alexandra Seitz)

Making their name as TV satirists on the Gronland series, acting-directing team Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern have established themselves as French cinema’s foremost comic provocateurs, mixing surrealism, sight gags, and committed anarcho-leftist radicalism in films including AALTRA, LOUISE-MICHEL, and 2018 eco-comedy I FEEL GOOD – not to mention outré vehicles for disreputable legends Gérard Depardieu and Michel Houellebecq. Their latest film DELETE HISTORY offers their pithy take on internet culture and its attendant alienation and stars TV regular Blanche Gardin as a woman facing the threat of revenge porn, who teams up with neighbors to beat the system – wherever the elusive “system” might be located. This briskly trenchant farce with its scattershot, sketch-like structure hits a few obvious targets (automated call centers, the Amazon gig economy), but hits them hard and joyously, and goes to some unexpected places besides. Vincent Lacoste, D&K regulars Benoît Poelvoorde and Bouli Lanners, even Houellebecq – who can’t be kept away from movie cameras these days – all contribute to a joyous “fuck you” in the French satiric tradition of “Hara Kiri” and “Charlie Hebdo” – although D&K do it very much in their own anarchic and altogether liberating way. (Jonathan Romney)

Benoît Delépine, Gustave Kervern: AALTRA (2004), AVIDA (2006), LOUISE-MICHEL (2008), MAMMUTH (2010), LE GRAND SOIR (2012), NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE (2014), SAINT AMOUR (2016), I FEEL GOOD (2018)