The film was produced by Thomas and Mathieu Verhaeghe through Atelier de Production, in co-production with France 3 Cinéma.[4]
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.[2]Alain Chabat and Pierre Niney were planned as cast members but were ultimately unavailable.[7] It was revealed that Dalí would be portrayed by multiple actors throughout the film.[8] 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).[7][9] After six weeks, filming officially wrapped on 23 December 2022.[4]
Release
Daaaaaalí! was selected to be screened out of competition at the 80th Venice International Film Festival,[10] where it had its world premiere on 7 September 2023.[1] International sales are handled by Kinology.[4] The film was originally scheduled to be theatrically released on 1 November 2023, but was postponed by Diaphana Distribution to 7 February 2024.[11][12]
In August 2023, it was confirmed that Thomas Bangalter, formerly of Daft Punk, had composed the score for the film.[13] Bangalter, a friend of Dupieux's, previously made a cameo in Dupieux's 2014 film Reality, a film starring Bangalter's wife Élodie Bouchez.[14] 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.[15]
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.[16][17] It was released to streaming platforms on 7 February.[18]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 100% of 24 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.5/10.[19]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 74 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[20] On AlloCiné, the film received an average rating of 3.6 out of 5 stars, based on 37 reviews from French critics.[21]
Sight and Sound critic John Bleasdale concluded, "Dupieux shares with his subject an obstinacy to forge ahead and in so doing attains a silliness that becomes dangerously close to the sublime."[22]
