Incredible But True

[Finch]

Arrow Films have acquired U.S., Canada, U.K. and Ireland rights to Berlinale title “Incredible But True,” by French writer-director Quentin Dupieux (“Mandibles”).

The quirky comedy, which had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February, sees a husband and wife move into a suburban house of their dreams only to discover that a mysterious secret is hidden in the basement, which may change their lives forever.

The film stars Alain Chabat (“The Science of Sleep,” “Mood Indigo”), Léa Drucker (“Custody,” “The Man of My Life”), Benoît Magimel (“The Piano Teacher,” “Thieves”) and Anaïs Demoustier (“Sweet Evil,” “Alice and the Mayor”).

Reviewing the film at Berlin, Variety critic Jessica Kiang described the film as “a fun little trinket that unmistakably comes from Dupieux’s far-out perspective” and “charmingly eccentric.”

The film is an Atelier de Production production in co-production with Versus Production and Arte France Cinema and produced by Mathieu Verhaeghe and Thomas Verhaeghe.

Arrow Films, a U.K.-based premiere label for cult, art, horror and world cinema, is planning a fall release on digital in the U.K., U.S., Canada and Ireland and a deluxe collector’s edition Blu-ray in those territories as part of its well-known Arrow Video brand.

The deal was negotiated by Francesco Simeoni, director of content at Arrow Films, and Gregory Chambet on behalf of WTFilms and Wild Bunch International who co-represent the film together.

Simeoni said: “We’ve long been fans of Quentin Dupieux’s work and we are thrilled to bring his inventive and hilarious latest new feature to audiences across our territories. We are sure the film will connect well with audiences across a variety of platforms.”

Chambet added: “Arrow is the perfect distributor to bring this insanely original time travelling film to American and British audiences. Their marketing talent and love for cult filmmakers are a great fit with Quentin Dupieux’s universe.”

[tenia]

Following Chris' review, I tried to look what I could find about it, but it looks like the French BD, released by Diaphana, has a 2.35 AR. It also looks like this was the theatrical AR reported by various press here. I'm thus puzzled as to where the 1.78 AR from Arrow comes from.

[domino harvey]

I have been pondering lately the questions this film sort of, kind of, a little bit has a passing interest in presenting, so I probably went into this with as much a head start on good will as one could hope for, but this is a shaggy dog sci-fi tale with nothing whatsoever to say about its medium concept premise (which the advertising goes to great lengths to conceal, so I will as well). I continue to admire Dupieux's ability to convince France's biggest stars to do whatever he tells them (never more apparent than in Benoît Magimel's fearless but still not quite funny perf), but I wish he followed through by giving his cast more to hang their hat (or blonde shag) on. And it takes a special kind of clueless arrogance to end your film by visually quoting a filmmaker (in an homage I spent the back half of the film counting down to the moment the inciting creature appeared on-screen) who perfected the kind of surreal absurdity Dupieux is incapable of embodying here

Following Chris' review, I tried to look what I could find about it, but it looks like the French BD, released by Diaphana, has a 2.35 AR. It also looks like this was the theatrical AR reported by various press here. I'm thus puzzled as to where the 1.78 AR from Arrow comes from.

Very curious how this was achieved, as I watched the 'Scope version and Lea Drucker was framed in a such a way in the shower scenes that it wasn't likely to be opened up for 1.78... surely they didn't just crop the sides, right?

[domino harvey]

Wait, if the screenshots on the homepage are from the Arrow, they... did crop the sides. They fucking cropped the sides.









(there's like a millisecond of difference here in the timing, but I think you get it)

[swo17]

Incroyable

[domino harvey]

SpoilerShow

I think Arrow went down the basement portal a few too many times back to when Blu-ray labels did lazy shit like license a cropped master created for cable television

[Tuppence]

Arrow must have a 2.35:1 master to hand, because the appreciation of Dupieux with Elena Lazic that Arrow made for the release features clips from the film in the correct ratio.

[Boosmahn]

This is coming to the Arrow Player in four days... I wonder which aspect ratio they'll stream it in. The trailer on there is correct, at least.

[Finch]

I wonder if this is another QC error or they were somehow given the source in the cropped ratio and no one at Arrow realised it even while they were splicing correctly framed footage into their bonus material. I can't imagine them intentionally cropping it this severely but if they did, I'd love to hear their reasoning.

[Aunt Peg]

I've canned my pre-order. Will wait and hope that Arrow correct this.

[Finch]

As per a Blu-Ray.com user, "pushed to December 5th and their store listing says Sold Out, which they've done in the past for other releases to stop people ordering until the issue has been fixed." So it seems like they're on to it.

[yoloswegmaster]

[therewillbeblus]

Good on Arrow, not every company approaches caught errors with a such transparent humility and action

[domino harvey]

But it just got three stars for video quality from Blu-ray.com!

[Rupert Pupkin]

Is it an open matte at least ? (with more on top and bottom) or is it zoom to 1:78, thus crop on top, bottom, right left ?

They should have release "Mandibules" which was one of Dupieux's best (with le Daim and Rubber). Think that "Mandibules" only got a BR release in Germany (not in France, only a WEB release).

[swo17]

It was not open matte, as domino's caps above demonstrate

[therewillbeblus]

I echo domino's disappointment here- I appreciate Dupieux's economical runtimes that keep his cute little faux-fables brief and breezy, but this doesn't do anything at all with its core idea and is frustrating for putting pieces in motion to arrive at an obvious ending already primed. As opposed to Mandibles, which earned its languid tone of broad humor by forming a buddy comedy of idiots reflexively vacuuming any lessons-to-be-learned from its absurd tale, Incredible But True is clearly aiming to explore its concept with narrative checkpoints and elongated montages sans-gags where the previous film's deviations into stupidity would cheekily usurp a theme, so there's no excuse for its failure. The B-plot had some serious potential and I almost laughed once or twice, but Dupieux either lost interest or wrote the script too quickly before rushing into production. I feel like if he took a little longer to craft something with the care of Deerskin, he'd produce more consistently great material. Even Keep an Eye Out had a phenomenal 10-15 minute stretch early on that reflected creative intuition and visual wit into the screenwriting and directing process, but everything around it felt low energy and directionless in the worst ways. The same could be said here, only without a particularly strong set piece to signal out with praise.

[Rupert Pupkin]

It was tender to watch Anais Demoustier in a new outfit and haircut, the problem with "Incredible But True" is that despite the "bite électrique" gag and the mystery with the pandora's box, the last 15 minutes (more?) shows that Dupieux did finish quickly his movie (and it was almost boring), which is the first time that I can see such flaws. Especially if we keep in mind that the movie was particularly not long (like all Dupieux movies).
There was even a good (French) TV series with Freya Mavor and Gaspard Ulliel titled "Il était une seconde fois" which shows exactly the same David Lynch's mystery box/path in the basement of the house.
And I remember vaguely a David Lynch'esque movie, was it called "The Box" ?
Whilst "Il était une seconde fois" is not supposed to be fun but is much more Brian DePalmanesque with the missed second chance like in Vertigo, we already had seen in this French TV series (which I found really good), and I'm not that fond about the morality (too classic) in Dupieux's movie; whereas "Mandibules" ended with a tribute to eternal friendship and one of the funniest tribute to Cronenberg's The Fly, I'm disappointed. Even on French radio, Alain Chabat said that it's not a bad thing that Dupieux is prolific and we have to accept that some of his movies are perhaps not flawless, but good and fun enough. I think that Mandibules is his funniest movie.
Well, Rohmer was prolific.
"La perfection, l'obsession du bâcleur"; Le Daim (Deerskin, that's the English title) was one of the most successful reflection about cinema - a "Mise en abyme" about cinema. And it was funny (Jean Dujardin was so funny and Adèle Haenel, as always, excellent) and humble. I think that Dupieux found the perfect balance in this movie, between fun, absurd and fantastic.

[yoshimori]

Good on Arrow, not every company approaches caught errors with a such transparent humility and action

Has anyone received a response from the Arrow team? My experience has been horrible -- first, an assurance that there was no problem with the disc, then three different people asking me for the information I'd previously given them, then total radio silence.

[Aunt Peg]

I ordered the disc on Boxing day, it's new UK release day only to received it today with an aspect ratio of 1:85:1.

Into the bin it is going.

Does the same problem exist with the American release?

[Aunt Peg]

Good on Arrow, not every company approaches caught errors with a such transparent humility and action

Has anyone received a response from the Arrow team? My experience has been horrible -- first, an assurance that there was no problem with the disc, then three different people asking me for the information I'd previously given them, then total radio silence.

I contacted them because of the above. They were unable to provide me with any information because I hadn't ordered the film from them. It also wasn't showing up on their site.

Anyway, full marks to Amazon, whom I contacted and they refunded me my money for the film - they expressed pleasure at me blaming the distributor not them for the problem.

I'll just play and wait and see what happens. I will keep the 1:85:1 disc I have in the event the film never turned up. Better in the wrong ratio aspect than nothing at all but once/if this is ever fixed I will purchase the disc in the correct aspect ratio, then bin the wrong one.

[swo17]

You just have to watch the film enough times. The AR gets 2 columns of pixels wider each viewing

[mhofmann]

PSA: I ordered the Blu-ray from Amazon.co.uk (directly from Amazon, no marketplace) on 28 January, which arrived today and still is the old, faulty stock with the incorrect aspect ratio.

Trying the Arrow Video replacement program route now. Preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.

[Aunt Peg]

PSA: I ordered the Blu-ray from Amazon.co.uk (directly from Amazon, no marketplace) on 28 January, which arrived today and still is the old, faulty stock with the incorrect aspect ratio.

Trying the Arrow Video replacement program route now. Preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.

Have you heard anything from Arrow?

I just checked out their site just now and they now have it listed again. When I contacted them about the faulty disc back in January the person who I was liaising with on-line wasn't even aware of the film, probably because at the time it wasn't listed on their website.

Now that it's back I'm tempted to order it but I'll wait and see a little while. Also the listing has pre-order which may be a good sign that this is probably a correct pressing.

https://www.arrowfilms.com/blu-ray/incr ... suggestion

[PfR73]

I bought this from B&N last year close to the release date. Once the corrected discs were announced as being available, in January I followed the steps at https://www.arrowfilms.com/blog/news/in ... programme/. But the intial response(s) I got were kind of nonsensical, like they didn't understand their own replacement program instructions. I had to go back & forth and increasingly pushback until I got a response from someone who understood, and after that I successfully got my replacement disc. So, just a heads up that anyone doing the replacement may disappointingly encounter the same issues and have to push through.