A man believes his life is a simulation and tries to convince his friend of the same. Quintin Dupieux’s uniquely animated philosophical film Vertiginous, or La Vertige, is presented at Fantastic Fest 2026.
Quentin Dupieux is no stranger to weird cinema. Across his career, the French multi-hyphenate writer-director-cinematographer revels in wonderfully askew films. Not just in presenting different approaches to film, but also in pushing the edges of discussion, never settling for anything straightforward. At last year’s Fantastic Fest, he gave the darkly funny The Piano Accident, fudging the lines of what’s acceptable for modern viral culture as a young woman refuses to deal with the repercussions of her self-harming-for-video ways as they leave her and expand to others. Previously, he’s delivered Deerskin about a man’s obsession with a jacket (a really nice jacket, mind you) and the internationally received cult film Rubber, aka the killer tire movie. This year at Fantastic Fest, he gifts a double feature of oddity. Full Phil features a bevy of English-language stars in a Parisian hotel along with a 50s monster movie. I hope to view that to complete the double feature, for I have seen the other film: Vertiginous, or La Vertige on IMDb.
Vertiginous feels like an extended bit from Richard Linklater’s Waking Life: peculiarly animated characters speaking about the oddities of life, questioning what we see and how, and what we take as life. For Waking Life, Linklater rotoscopes famous actors musing. For Vertiginous, Dupieux uses a different but equally striking animation method to explore his ideas. That method? Video game animation from the late 90s. That idea? What if we’re living in a simulation?
Vertiginous means dealing with vertigo or dizziness, a fitting title for the turns the characters turn themselves into and around. Jacky, voiced by Alain Chabat, has come to a realization. We live in a simulation. He’s been keeping track of oddities and glitches in his world, and as we start the film, he needs to convince his friend Bruno, voiced by Jonathan Cohen. After his wife gives birth without any issues, despite lacking an umbilical cord, Bruno might believe him. Much of the film is the discussion of such questions: what is life, what does it matter if we are if we can’t change it? Is a simulation real if it’s real to us? With a few more folds in this thinking, particularly from Jean-Marie Windling’s Christophe, who has a different reason for the glitches, there’s some philosophical thought. Brain-breaking thought as it could be. But within the oddity of the conversation, Vertiginious is outright hilarious, with the beats of Jacky and Bruno’s conversations bouncing off one another, the odd turns of phrase, and the absurdity of it all.
The animation style is more than a gimmick. It’s fitting. For those of a certain age, you’ll remember what cutscenes and characters looked like in the late 90s and early 00s. My immediate frame of reference is GoldenEye 007 for the N64. Think scanned faces (for this film, the animated characters resemble the actors) placed on blocky bodies in the still-burgeoning idea of “Realistic” 3D (compared to the more cartoony Super Mario 64). These worlds fell into an uncanny valley; one can see the world being replicated, but it’s jolty, strange, not quite alive. And filled with glitches, the oddities Jacky notes. If one played these games, these anomalies will bring back those memories and connect in the film. It’s a weird level of nostalgia, seeing how the 3d sprites and constructs worked in this era.
It kind of peters out toward teh end, with an “okay I’ve said everything I need to say and not sure where to go next?…. Just end?” sort of vibe. But at 65 minutes, even with wrinkles and shifts to he concept, it’s more than it can allow. Dupieux works with character; it’s not just a speech, with Jackie and Bruno being very different men. There’s fun in how they both approach the new “truths,” and in Bruno’s use of acceptance filters to shape how people treat our world and other people.
Vertingious is a Quinten Dupieux film, so it’s weird and off-kilter but fascinating to a fault. With a different sort of animation style, one that matches the messages and questions of the film, it asks us to question our life – are we in a Matrix simulation? Okay. Probably not, but it’s a fun thought as we notice the oddities around us.
Vertingious is presented as part of Fantastic Fest 2026, occuring in Austin, TX from September 17 through 24th. See here for more.