Smoking Causes Coughing
Written and Directed by Quentin Dupieux
Starring: Gilles Lellouche, Vincent Lacoste, Anaïs Demoustier
Unrated
Runtime: 1 hour, 17 minutes
In select theaters and on demand March 31

by Gary M. Kramer, Staff Writer

Smoking Causing Coughing is the latest bit of whimsy by writer/director Quentin Dupieux. His films, Rubber, Wrong, Keep an Eye Out, Deerskin, and Mandibles, among them, are delightfully absurdist and deadpan. His comedies may be an acquired taste, but Dupieux has developed a loyal fanbase. For the uninitiated, however, it can be very much “at your own risk.” 

Smoking Causes Coughing opens with a young boy (Tanguy Mercier), asking his parents to stop the car so he can pee. Hearing noises—that sound like sex—he investigates and sees the Tobacco Force fighting Tortusse (a giant foam-suited turtle) in the chasm below. Cut to the fight, where Benzene (Gilles Lellouche), Methanol (Vincent Lacoste), Ammonia (Oulaya Amamra), Nicotine (Anaïs Demoustier) and Mercury (Jean-Pascal Zadi) all use “the negative energy of tobacco” to kill, splattering Tortusse in a hilariously bloody sight gag. (Such is Dupieux’s twisted sense of humor).

The story begins in earnest when the Tobacco Force are informed by Didier (Alain Chabat), their rat-like leader, that they must go on a retreat to improve group cohesion as they will soon have to fight Lizardin (Benoît Poelvoorde), who has plans to destroy earth.

Smoking Causes Coughing gets some mileage out of its ridiculous premise because once the Tobacco Force gets to their underground bunker—complete with sea-water shower and supermarket fridge—they sit around a campfire and tell stories. Dupieux seems to have created this retreat as a framework to sketch out some crazy ideas he had. 

The stories, which play out like an anthology of short films, provide the comedic highlights. In the first segment, a woman, Agathe (Doria Tillier), discovers a “thinking helmet” in a house she has rented with her husband, Bruno (Jérôme Niel), and another couple, Christophe (Grégoire Ludig) and Celine (Adele Exarchopoulous). The helmet makes Agathe realize that she never loved her husband nor does she like their friends. She also has thoughts like, “Maybe humankind is one big mistake.” When Christophe tries to saw the helmet off—Agathe won’t remove it—things get intense. Meaning violently funny.

Smoking Causes Coughing follows that episode up with some semantics about words like “period” and “female,” that allow viewers to reset before a young girl, Josette (Thémis Terrier-Thiebaux), recounts a really horrific tale.

The stories are sometimes abrupt, interrupted, unfinished, or, in the case of Mercury’s, untold. When Benzene catches a barracuda in the lake, the fish recounts a tale—of course, it talks!—as it is being grilled. This vignette involves a woman named Tony (Blanche Gardin) rescuing her nephew Michaël (Anthony Sonigo) who is literally caught in a bind. As this narrative gets more and more preposterous—it would spoil the fun to describe what transpires—it ends with an amusing punchline. (Even if viewers see it coming, it’s still very funny).

Dupieux is consistently inventive. He has two characters play “spider, bird, and frying pan,” a variation on “rock, paper, scissors.” And Ammonia counseling Nicotine about her crush on Didier—she saw him with another woman—by telling her that kissing their boss would involve green goo in her mouth. There are at least two payoffs that follow this exchange.

Sometimes Dupieux holds a joke for too long, but that is probably deliberate; if laughing doesn’t come at first, it might by the time the gag plays out. But maybe not. The humor here is not for everyone, and what can be hysterical to fans—the talking barracuda, the bloody violence—can absolutely be stupid and off-putting to others. 

Nevertheless, for anyone on Dupieux’s cockeyed wavelength, Smoking Causes Coughing should prompt guffaws.