Daaaaaalí!

Daaaaaalí! is a 2023 French comedy film written and directed by Quentin Dupieux. It has been described as a "real fake biopic" about the surrealist artist Salvador Dalí.

The film premiered out of competition at the 80th Venice International Film Festival, and was theatrically released on 7 February 2024.

Plot
A French journalist meets with Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dalí on multiple occasions for an unproductive documentary project.

Cast

 * Anaïs Demoustier as a journalist
 * Gilles Lellouche as Salvador Dalí
 * Édouard Baer as Salvador Dalí
 * Jonathan Cohen as Salvador Dalí
 * Pio Marmaï as Salvador Dalí
 * Didier Flamand as Salvador Dalí
 * Romain Duris as an editor
 * Agnès Hurstel

Production
The film was produced by Thomas and Mathieu Verhaeghe through Atelier de Production, in co-production with France 3 Cinéma.

On 8 November 2022, Dupieux announced on his Instagram account that principal photography for the film had commenced. The post also revealed a cast including Anaïs Demoustier, Édouard Baer, Gilles Lellouche, Pio Marmaï, Jonathan Cohen, Hakim Jemili, Agnès Hurstel, Jérôme Niel, Marc Fraize and Didier Flamand. Alain Chabat and Pierre Niney were planned as cast members but were ultimately unavailable. Dalí will be portrayed by multiple actors throughout the film. Shooting took place in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Cloud, the south of France, and finally in Spain, where a house on the Costa Brava was staged for the film to evoke Dalí's house in Portlligat. In the Spanish desert, Dupieux also filmed tableaux vivants inspired by two paintings by Dalí: Necrophilic Fountain Flowing from a Grand Piano (1932) and The Average Fine and Invisible Harp (1932). After six weeks, filming officially wrapped on 23 December 2022.

Release
Daaaaaalí! was selected to be screened out of competition at the 80th Venice International Film Festival, where it had its world premiere on 7 September 2023. International sales are handled by Kinology. The film was originally scheduled to be theatrically released on 1 November 2023, but was postponed by Diaphana Distribution to 7 February 2024.

Soundtrack
In August 2023, it was confirmed that Thomas Bangalter, formerly of Daft Punk, had composed the score for the film. Bangalter, a friend of Dupieux's, previously made a cameo in Dupieux's 2014 film Reality, a film starring Bangalter's wife Élodie Bouchez. Bangalter and Dupieux wanted the score to be its own "character" in the movie. Bangalter exclusively used an ancient zither as the instrument for the score.

In January 2024, Ed Banger Records announced the release of a limited 10" vinyl EP containing Bangalter's brief original score for the film and a poster for the film. The soundtrack is set to release on 9 February 2024. It was released to streaming platforms on 7 February.

Critical response
Daaaaaalí received an average rating of 3.6 out of 5 stars on the French website AlloCiné, based on 37 reviews. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 100% based on 10 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3/10.