Dir/Wri: Bruno Dumont | France Drama 2026
Les Roches Rouges marks an intriguing departure for Bruno Dumont, a filmmaker hardly known for conventional comedy. Here, however, he turns his attention to a distinctly child-centred drama whose peculiar situations and deadpan observations produce an unexpectedly rich vein of humour.
The setting is spectacular, the French director making the red rocks and turquoise depths of the coast around Antheor (St Raphael) the major attraction – his giddy camerawork adding a surreal and unnerving edge to this unusual thriller.
The children are the film’s real engine, with Dumont capturing the mixture of seriousness, imagination and casual cruelty that makes childhood such fertile cinematic territory. Their world is both recognisable and faintly surreal, while the adults often seem like strange intruders in a universe governed by its own rules.
What makes the film particularly engaging is Dumont’s refusal to underline its comic moments. The humour arrives sideways, often from an awkward gesture, an oddly judged reaction or the sheer disproportion between how seriously the children view events and how insignificant they may appear to adults.
It’s a curious film, certainly, and a welcome reminder that Dumont is less predictable than his reputation might suggest. Roches Rouges may be an unlikely comic excursion, but its eccentricity feels entirely his own.
DIRECTORS FORTNIGHT CANNES 2026