Tip Top

U.S. Premiere! Director Serge Bozon in person!

Co-written with Axelle Ropert (also featured in this year’s Rendez-Vous with Miss and the Doctors), Bozon’s much-anticipated follow-up to 2007’s La France is a one-of-a-kind screwball procedural adapted from a pulp novel by Welsh writer Bill James. Meticulous and eccentric internal-affairs investigator Esther (Isabelle Huppert) and her mousy new partner Sally (Sandrine Kiberlain), recently demoted due to a mysterious ethics violation, are summoned to look into the Villeneuve police department after the murder of an Algerian informant. As entanglements ensue with belligerent local detective Mendès (a very funny François Damiens), Bozon throws together seemingly mismatched elements with aplomb: exploring the women detectives’ sexual kinks even as he comments on racism and postcolonial tensions. In keeping with its director’s background in criticism, Tip Top is an exploration of policier tropes but also a bold, strange, often delightful film that looks, sounds and moves like nothing else in its genre(s). A Kino Lorber release.

Additional screening March 13 at IFC Center.