Daaaaaalí! is a 2024 French surreal comedy film directed and written by Quentin Dupieux. Thomas Bangalter (one half of Daft Punk) composed the soundtrack.
Judith, a French baker-turned-journalist (Anaïs Demoustier), meets with Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dalí on multiple occasions for an unproductive documentary project despite the advices of her boss Jérôme (Romain Duris). Surreal things happen, including the fact that Dalí is portrayed by no less than six different actor (Gilles Lellouche, Édouard Baer, Jonathan Cohen, Pio Marmaï, Didier Flamand and Boris Gillot).
Daaaaaalí! provides examples of the following tropes:
- The '80s: No date is indicated but the phones, computers and cameras all look like they're from that decade, and the journalist protagonist sports '80s Hair. Moreover, Salvador Dalí died in 1989. Overall, temporality doesn't matter much in the film.
- Biography à Clef: Not so much — not even at all — a biography, but the film tries to embrace the state of mind in which Dalí made his art or appeared on television rather than his art in itself.
- Child Hater: Baer!Dalí says there's only one things he hates more than children — drawings by children (from a Real Life quote by Dalí).
- Cloudcuckoolander: Each one of the Dalís is an oddball, naturally.
- Eccentric Artist: Guess who? Dalí speaks French in his trademark Large Ham style, a version of him is a Child Hater who hates children's drawings even more, one other speaks in Third-Person Person, and all versions of him sport upwards-pointing mustaches and use a Classy Cane. He also considers himself as "the only still living artist on this planet".
- In the Back: A priest mounted on a mule gets shot in the back.
- Shout-Out: This teaser
with Judith and the six Dalís Finishing Each Other's Sentences saying "We. Are. All. Totally. Crazy. About Dalí!" is a reference to the Real Life artist's endorsement of the French chocolate brand Lanvin in 1968 (see for yourself) where he said "I am CRAZY about Lanvin chocolate!" (in French). - Show Within a Show: Judith tries to put a documentary together.
- Surreal Humor: As expected with a film about a major figure of Surrealism in art, there are quite a few appropriate moments:
- Dalí is portrayed by six different actors (one actor for each "a" in "Daaaaaali").
- There's a rain of dead animals at one point.
