IR Film Review: KEEP AN EYE OUT [Dekanalog]

The aspect of perspective but also of consequence and the seeing eye depends upon who is telling the story. Director Quentin Dupieux who has always formulated in idea of the wrong way people end up in their story despite their correct course (Fest Track interviewed his actors at Sundance for his film "Wrong") reflects in a more minimalist structure in "Keep An Eye Out" but with no less frolic and disdain. The lead character, an everyman who happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and acted the wrong way despite being right, happens to be interrogated by a chief of police so bored that he tries to spice up the idea with different scenarios that are inherently wrong. The everyman seems overly worried about the innocence he might be portraying while everyone else seems to have so much more going wrong with much less care. The issue becomes why is he being persecuted or why is he covering up his own inadequacies. It speaks to ideas of contentment but but also self esteem. The metaphor of "Keep An Eye Out" refers to all the characters but specifically to one because of both his reasoning for life but also in blindness in many other things. There is definitely a meta layer of reflection affecting recollection in the film but it doesn't slow down the quips which Dupieux keeps throwing at the audience. While the ending seems to confirm simply the inescapability of perception, it does show that ideas are exactly what they seem while also bending them to an originality all their own. B

By Tim Wassberg