COINCOIN and EXTRA HUMANS

Öykü Bozgeyik

Achieving universal comedy is difficult due to cultural differences and unfamiliar humor. However, including universally sensitive topics like racism, homosexuality, immigration and religion help getting attention through absurd comedy. Coincoin and Extra Humans touch on these topics to criticize and make the viewers think.


COINCOIN AND EXTRA HUMANS


Achieving universal comedy is difficult due to cultural differences and unfamiliar humor. However including universally sensitive topics like racism, homosexuality, immigration and religion helps getting attention through absurd comedy. Coincoin and Extra Humans touches on these topics to criticize and make the viewers think.

Coincoin and Extra Humans is four episode series as a sequel to P’tit Quinquin which was a four episode mini series for television in 2014 by Bruno Dumont. Bruno Dumont keeps the hero Coincoin (or Quinquin as called in younger version) who is now in his teens. While he tries to figure out what to do with his love for Eve, as she is now interested in an androgynous girl, Coincoin meets another girl, Jenny, who is the daughter of the deputy of right wing nationalistic party. Immigration and race are also present in the movie as the police officers travel to refugee camps and make racist comments during their investigation of the extraterrestrial sludge. Moreover, Van Der Weyden, the police investigator, considers the same-sex relationships as a result of ‘the internet and all that’ without really understanding or questioning. Issues of politics and same-sex relationships are presented from the beginning, letting the audience to ponder upon these topics.

The main story is to investigate a curious black sludge. Extraterrestrial bulk of black sludge falls from sky at random moments, sometimes on the police investigator, sometimes on the road. This mysterious black sludge appears to be harmless accept that it smells putrid. A scientist explains that this extraterrestrial black sludge is an alien kind and the police investigators Van Der Weyden and Carpetier try to solve its mystery. The black sludge has an alien spirit which finds a victim and results in the victim giving birth to himself/herself. Then the doppelgangers of random villagers forms a comedic confusion.

Exaggerated mimics, tics and reactions of the two police investigators Roger Van Der Weyden and Rudy Carpentier played by Bernard Pruvost and Philippe Jore make the movie appear as a parody of investigation movies. Van Der Weyden’s fruitless efforts to solve the supernatural mystery is accompanied with the equally unsuccessful companion Carpentier. Although we are accustomed to this funny unsuccessful police officer figures in comedy, Pruvost plays Van Der Weyden in almost an absurd way with really exaggerated mimics and tics as if he is slightly drunk. Phillipe Jore plays Carpentier with funny facial overreactions and this facial expressions actually suits his quirky character.

Postmodern nature of comedy provides flexibility when compared to Hollywood cinema. (Harrod&Powrie, 2018) This flexibility leads absurdities in various scenes in comedy. Absurd comedy is relatively new to cinema and it is not studied much. Slapstick and unusual scenes like driving the car on two side wheels are major comedic elements in the movie. However, the movie is long and some of the slapstick comedy becomes too repetitious. 4 episodes, 208 minutes, create a lot of room to have action, problems, conflicts, questions and twists. However not much happens in these four episodes. Repetitions on slapstick comedy and doppelganger confusion draws attention to issues that underlies the comedy. Here Nikolaj Lübecker’s question is quite relevant: To what extent is P’tit Quinquin aiming to be a comedy? (Lübecker, 2018) We can also ask “To what extent is Coincoin and Extra Humans aiming to be a comedy?” Does the movie try to be a comedy, or to draw attention to sensitive subjects?

The alien existence in the form of black sludge does not fall into immigrant camp area. “Aliens (as in from outer space) and illegal aliens (as in immigrants and refugees) are thus clearly aligned,” as Hoeij writes. (Hoeij, 2018) This parallel continues as the investigators travel around the village. African American immigrants’ encounter with the two police investigators Roger Van Der Weyden and Rudy Carpentier, when Van Der Weyden’s face is smeared with the alien black sludge, is thought provoking as Van Der Weyden refers them as aliens. These moments are examples of unfunny comedy, it makes the audience think, or banish their anxiety (Lübecker, 2018) The audience tries to laugh off the uneasy racist comments and think the parallel between the immigrants and how they are treated.

Using sensitive themes like immigration and juxtaposing it with the supernatural is not foreign to Dumont. Dumont had played with these themes in this previous works like La vie de Jésus (1997) and Humanity (1999). (Aftab, 2018) Clearly Dumont has a style, not only with the themes but also with the choice of actors. All the actors in Coincoin and Extra Humans (and also P’tit Quinquin) are unprofessional actors, some with disabilities. This results in sincere yet clumsy acting with awkward moments, just as Dumont wants to achieve in his comedy.


References:

Aftab, K. (2018, July 08). Review: Coincoin and the Extra-Humans. Retrieved from https://cineuropa.org/en/newsd...

Harrod, M., & Powrie, P. (2018). New directions in contemporary French comedies: From nation, sex and class to ethnicity, community and the vagaries of the postmodern. Studies in French Cinema,18(1), 1-17. doi:10.1080/14715880.2017.1415420

Hoeij, B. V. (2018, August 06). 'Coincoin and the Extra-Humans' ('Coincoin et les Z'inhumains'): TV Review | Locarno 2018. Retrieved from https://www.hollywoodreporter....

Lübecker, N. (2018). Bruno Dumont’s comic look: P’tit Quinquin (2014) as a social and ethical intervention. Studies in French Cinema, 18(1), 87-99. doi:10.1080/14715880.2016.1217611

 

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