The endless trailers and adverts finally end, the room temporarily brightens before sinking once again into darkness. A twinkling light tune, not unreminiscent of some synth-dominated European soundtrack from the ’70s, plays as we see a man in an open jeep bumping down the road. The man is dressed in an army uniform and the light is at a constant angle on his face despite the clouds behind. He rides down this road for a good long moment, the camera holding on him from the waist up. Suddenly, an unusual combination of wind and bump combine to pull off his toupee. He turns around quickly and the jeep flips over.

This is the beginning of SteaK, a marvelous film by Quentin Dupieux, also known as Mr. Oizo, an electro petit princ from the early years of the 21st century. It stars two well-known french comics, Eric & Ramzy, and is set largely in the future. Well, 2016 to be precise. In this new world people drink milk like vodka, smoking and beards gets you beaten up, everyone has some kind of plastic surgery, and instead of saying hello, you say “bottine.” (mini-boot)

Those familiar with Eric & Ramzy’s work, looking for cheap gags which modern French cinema embarassingly reveals itself to be desperately prolific, will be surprised. Surprised, shocked, and horrified. In fact, I counted no less than five people who left the theatre and the critics on allocine.fr leave no doubt. The film is a horrorshow for the “bof”s from the banlieue, the usual fodder of Eric & Ramzy’s previous work. It’s satirical edge, it’s strange beauty and it’s terrifyingly empty message could only be incomprehensible and thus repulsive to them. It is in a way understandable. The mockery is aimed partially in their direction.

But the film is more than that. It is startling to say the least. Several spectators have called it an “OVNI,” the french word for UFO and they’re way of saying it’s a strange and unexpected object. There are definite nods to Kubrick, both the riffing of a Clockwork Orange, and the shooting style itself. Some of the shots last quite long, which is something more akin to auteur cinema rather than summer blockbuster comedy. The main dramatic moment in the opening is an open reference to Elephant by Gus van Sant. There’s an almost Todd Solondz moment involving a man in a wheelchair (none other than Sebastien Tellier!) The strangeness is almost Dada-esque at points. It’s almost a film made for contemporary art rather than pop culture, as evidenced in its slaughtering by almost all the major french rags save the one vaguely interested in art.

The music alone is pure joy. Most of it is written by Sebastien Tellier though Dupieux, famous as Mr. Oizo, certainly jumps in on the fun. Tellier steals several stylistic fluorishes from Francois de Roubaix and throws in his own melancholy chords that seem to be laughing at their own histrionics.

It might be safe to say that without the cinematography, the shooting style and the music, this movie might be just a failed ironic comedy. At times during the middle portion, the film begs to be recut, rewritten or just a stronger arm to pull the actors back from slapstick. It’s not perfect. And maybe the film suffers from an identity crisis. With the trailer as evidence, the people who marketed this film couldn’t see it as more than a cheap comedy. I mean, DON’T WATCH THE BLOODY TRAILER, since it contains all the worst parts. But, there is something about SteaK, something about its wittiness, lightness, emptiness that compels me, compels me to beg you to watch this film before it disappears from the cinema, which could happen as early as this Thursday.

At least you’ll be able to tell your children you were one of thirty people who saw it in the cinema when it finally becomes cool.