Shaggy-dog stories don’t come shaggier than this enjoyable load of old nonsense from France’s favourite freaky film absurdist Quentin Dupieux. The director — and erstwhile ‘90s house DJ/iconic hand puppet Mr Oizo — has made a name for himself as his country’s best exporter of cinematic weirdness, making films (deadly-tyre horror Rubber, haunted-jacket thriller Deerskin) that resolutely make no sense, have little to say, and exist primarily for surreal giggles. This, his 11th film, is very much in that mould.
The backbone of Smoking Causes Coughing is a Power Rangers piss-take: a spandex-clad superhero team known as Tobacco Force, who use the power of smoking to defeat rubber-costumed alien enemies. This initial element is a pitch-perfect parody of a specific type of kids’ entertainment crossed with a PSA, played confoundingly straight, and littered with bizarre details (the team’s boss, Chief Didier, is a drooling puppet rat seen only on a CRT television screen, who says things like “Am I dreaming or have your breasts grown bigger?”).
There is very little point to any of it, which is kind of the point.
Then it swerves into an even more bonkers Tales Of The Crypt-style anthology, with the team swapping some gory stories told around a campfire, played out for us on screen, the Tobacco Force rather jarringly taking a backseat. One is a strangely existential tale of a woman who disassociates from her life when she puts on a special helmet and embarks on a killing spree. One involves a man who remains remarkably cheerful when his leg gets stuck in a woodchipper. One is recounted by a talking barracuda.
There is very little point to any of it, which is kind of the point: none of the stories amount to anything or bear any connective theme. Any character development of the Tobacco Force, meanwhile, is quickly and deliberately squandered. That can be a frustrating experience, there being little in the conventional sense to cling onto. But Dupieux always opts for the funniest or most absurd option over any kind of narrative sense; if you surrender to his silliness, you’re in for a très drôle time.