02/07/2025 - We met with the French director on the release of his fourteenth feature film, which is a biting satire about the content creator age

(© Philippe Lebruman)

As stealthily as ever, Quentin Dupieux is releasing his new feature film, The Piano Accident [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Quentin Dupieux
film profile], on 2 July in France via Diaphana (and on 9 July in Belgium), telling the story of a female content creator played by Adèle Exarchopoulos, who capitalises on her congenital insensitivity to pain by shooting videos in which she subjects her body to the worst possible abuses, but who has second thoughts following an accident.

Cineuropa: How would you describe the film in a few words?
Quentin Dupieux: For me, it’s a snapshot of the digital madness which we’re all living in. The emphasis is on the word “snapshot”, rather than a point of view; I’m not specifically looking to criticise social networks or the people who use them.

It’s a snapshot of a certain point in time, but it’s also inscribed within the history of the internet and content creation, which wasn’t known by that name at the time of Jackass, for example, which you refer to.
It’s no coincidence that I mention Jackass. As far as I’m aware, it was the first time people produced fairly low-quality footage with non-professional cameras, which was then broadcast on cable channels which would usually show music videos or really polished programmes. Although this content did become more heavily produced as it became more successful. To begin with, it was just a bunch of kids mucking around with camcorders. And the fact that such a poor product could be exciting, opened lots of doors, and there’s continuity with what’s happening today. You can compare all that to what Magaloche does. And they’re things that I watched myself and that I really like. I thought it was really funny and a breath of fresh air at a time when everything was overproduced. A bit of homemade TV was a welcome change, at the time.

It’s really poor quality content, but it’s also really democratic.
It’s accessible to everyone, filming yourself cooking, creating a bit of fiction... The video quality of modern phones is far superior to what was used in Jackass. And, eventually, it was all made more professional. There’s something amusing about the fact that everyone has become a creator in some way. That might be the limit of our era: we’re going to reach a point where we’ll have as many viewers as creators, which is pretty absurd. It create an imbalance which I find funny to observe. There’s undoubtedly a danger in the fact that it’s all become totally normalised, we’re seeing very young children producing content and earning money with sponsors. That’s also why I showed the beginning of Magali’s story. People can sell their souls from the youngest possible age. Anyone can create entertainment with practically no resources. It’s no doubt a good thing, but there’s a dangerous side to it too. The word “absurd” has been used a lot in relation to my films, but I believe The Piano Accident is no more absurd than real-life, even though I haven’t changed the way I write. Everything’s going so fast that I feel like it’s the first time the absurdity of one of my films perfectly matches the absurdity of real-life.

Magali is disconnected from empathy, which also makes her insensitive to other people’s pain. This lack of empathy leaves her isolated, she’s incredibly lonely both looking down the lens of the camera and in her wider life.
That’s the feeling I get when I look at social media. The way people communicate via comments. We never write comments when we have people to talk to. It’s the intersection between the loneliness of people who film themselves and of the people who are watching them. It’s so different from the cinema world, which is a shared experience with close collaborators, a team, and a wider industry.

What was the biggest challenge while making this film?
The suspense. In the past I’ve made films which relied purely on a surrealist principle. But I had a strong desire to create suspense, in my own way. That was the challenge, in my mise-en-scène approach: to create suspense with this slightly twisted and exaggerated story, for people to want to know what’s going to happen, to be a little afraid, and to be pleased to learn about the notorious piano accident. I was interested in a far less linear structure than usual.

(Translated from French)