Reveling in galactic absurdity, “The Empire,” the latest from the fiercely unconventional French filmmaker Bruno Dumont, plunks us down in a fishing village in Northern France to witness an extraterrestrial war for control of humankind.
What that looks like, however, is less a space opera than a banal, metaphysical farce — a “Star Wars” parody of increasing daftness and diminishing fun. As two alien races known as One and Zero vie for mastery over a handful of unexceptional locals, Dumont’s screenplay stirs simplistic notions of good and evil into a plot that goes nowhere except — literally — down its own black hole.
Until then, we are distracted by two minimally clothed young women: Line (Lyna Khoudri), part demon and all pout, who prefers to sunbathe in the nude; and Jane (Anamaria Vartolomei) a beautiful, bikini-clad alien princess. (One gets the impression Dumont is not unfamiliar with the oeuvre of Russ Meyer.) Both women are inexplicably turned on by the perpetually surly Jony (Brandon Vlieghe), an evil Zero and father to a satanic toddler who must be killed before puberty — a stage that, parents will agree, can turn even human offspring demonic.
This sci-fi twaddle, soothingly framed by rolling sand dunes and a slash of crystal coastline (dreamily photographed by David Chambille), eventually tests our patience. Lightsaber tomfoolery and Lynchian interludes — like a bizarre musical scene featuring a clownish alien leader (Fabrice Luchini) and a writhing, callipygian dancer — embellish Dumont’s awkward merger of the terrestrial and the star-bound. The church-versus-state symbolism in the design of the rival mother ships, however, is a cool touch.
With a little tweaking, “The Empire” could have been an amusing interspecies love triangle, as the Zero attempt to weaponize our “natural turpitudes.” Though, given the quantities of tongue involved in each libidinous encounter, I’d expect dehydration to be a far greater threat than an alien invasion.
The Empire
Not rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes. In theaters.
