“Rumors” review: Diplomacy becomes primal in a padded satire of the G-7

If you’re curious about what really happens when world leaders come together to reach consensus on global issues, read a book about it. But if, given our current geopolitical reality, you’re imagining a cross between cabin-in-the-woods horror and a high school soap opera, then the delightfully absurd and Buñuelian “Rumours,” co-directed by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen. Johnson, this may sound like a documentary to your anxious mind.

The trio of Canadian filmmakers is known for their cinematic fantasies (“The Forbidden Room” “The Green Fog”), and “Rumours” is closer to a sketch idea stretched to star-studded feature length. It’s certainly made for these (end) times: a lushly surreal, cynically ticklish goof about the ineffectiveness of political summits as apocalyptic fear mounts. Somewhere, the aforementioned Spanish director behind “The Exterminating Angel” is nodding wryly at the idea of ​​a satire about G-7 leaders set in a bog full of mummified zombies.

After a tidy Wes Anderson-esque opening in which our fictional septet of epically superficial national leaders is introduced, the hard work of schmoozy collaboration and dealing with petty neuroses begins. Organize the round table at the lakeside Cate BlanchettHilda, the elegant, cold and manipulative German chancellor, sits next to her capricious opposite number, Canadian Prime Minister Maxime (Roy Dupuis, hilarious), a passionately brooding, overly sensitive and scandal-tinged gray fox. Early on, we learn that Maxime has engaged in a different type of international relationship with the nervously polite British Minister Cardosa (Nikki Amuka-Bird), but much to his dismay, Maxime has moved on.

Rounding out this list of dignitaries is the elderly American president (Charles Dance), who, in an illogic never explained, sports a British accent; the intellectually self-aggrandizing and incapable French head of state (Denis Menochet), who ends up transported in a wheelbarrow; and Japanese leaders who are always accommodating (Takehiro Hida of “Shogun”) and Italy (Rolando Rovello), their screen time roughly matching the attention of the little brothers and sisters these countries receive every day of information.

The goal of each is a provisional statement on a crisis never before formulated. But the sentimental pride of their “leadership burden”, the absurd hesitations and the growing fear that the environment has in store for them an imminent catastrophe, make even the elaboration of the usual gibberish impossible. And indeed, there’s not much going on in screenwriter Evan Johnson’s blend of simple humor and conceptual wit, beyond straight delivery of volleys of ridiculous dialogue and strange encounters with bog people that please themselves – and ultimately, a sparkling car-sized film. brain. They also find a disheveled ex-colleague (Alicia Vikander) who delivers a revolutionary message of doom, but in a different language they can barely bother to recognize.

Then again, all the bickering, dawdling, and reliable, self-preserving ignorance in the face of doom nipping at them is the problem. Thanks to the cast’s deadpan chops, the low-level silliness is funny enough to offset the occasional feeling that a shorter, tighter version built around its biggest laughs might have been more effective. (Yet he is more amused by human weaknesses than by the smug howls of humans.) “Don’t look up.”)

“Rumours” also benefits from Maddin’s cheesy, genre-specific DNA, particularly in Stefan Ciupek’s thrilling cinematography, which combines mid-century melodrama with a thick monster matinee. It also reminds us that the nuclear age of the 1950s was the last great cinematic era to transform universal terror into gleefully schizoid audiences. Let’s hope “Rumours” can usher in a new era of gonzo entertainment, let’s all laugh together in fear.