Bruno Dumont’s comic look: P’tit Quinquin (2014) as a social and ethical intervention

What is it about?

For most viewers it came as a big surprise when Bruno Dumont ventured into TV comedy with the four-part series P’tit Quinquin (2014). This article examines why Dumont was attracted to comedy. Drawing on texts by Henri Bergson and Wolfgang Iser, the article first attempts to define the specificity of what shall be called Dumont’s comic look. Next, it analyses what it means to take a comic look at socio-political problems such as religious and racial conflicts. The article argues that Dumont refrains from trying to move beyond these problems, but also that P’tit Quinquin places the spectators in a non- tragic relation to the problems raised. The series therefore looks at the social world in a very different way than many of Dumont’s previous, more tragic feature films. Ultimately, this not only allows an auteurist reading of P’tit Quinquin (the series is gently laughing at Dumont’s earlier films), but also supports the more general point that comedy can be particularly well suited to negotiating contemporary social challenges.

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