Welcome to my 2026 project honoring the first quarter of the 21st century. In this extremely lax project I watch a movie from each year to hopefully give myself some insight with what has changed within cinema during this century. At the very least I’ll have watched 25 interesting films and paired them with a dinner inspired by the movie, the place its from, and maybe a little bit of nostalgia for the past 25 years. You can watch along with me or find out what’s up next by checking out the full list of movies.
Today’s feature is from the year 2018, we are headed to Belgium to get arrested…
Movie: Au poste! [Keep An Eye Out!]
Year: 2018
Director: Quentin Dupieux
Country: Belgium
The Elevator Pitch: Fugain is being interviewed at the police station for a mysterious murder that he reported which suddenly makes him the prime suspect.
How Was the Movie?:
This was a really interesting movie. I don’t think most people should run out to watch it because it’s kind of a bit of a mixed bag. It’s very low-key cinema mostly being shot inside of one room with cut aways to a couple other apartment buildings and inside of the police station but thankfully the room is intricately and interestingly designed. The cinematography keeps the film interesting even when the story itself kind of lags a bit.
If you don’t like clever plays and verbal sparring you probably won’t enjoy this at all but eventually once it starts to gain steam I kind of found myself really enjoying it. I think the movie was trying to make statements about the police and society in a way that some of the previous films we watched haven’t really nailed but it’s hard to expand on them without ruining the film actually.
The acting in this is very interesting and I suspect despite translators doing their best that there might have been some subtitles we were missing in French. All in all I think I liked it in the end, it reminded me a little fondly of The Foundation of Criminal Excellence but I couldn’t explain why though. I guess it also has a scrappy can do attitude and a lot of shot in shot compositions?
If you want an absurd little film with a side of snark this is perfect for you otherwise I would probably skip it.
Despite the film being seemingly set in modern day all the technology in the film is outdated from the typewriter to the very old timey television set. Part of the charm of the movie is that it could really be from any time in the modern era and that is played up in parts of the film as well as part of the absurd circus going on. In the end I liked it just fine, my SO loved it so I think it has to hit you the right way.
What was for Dinner?:
For dinner I made Waterzooi which comes from the old Dutch word for boiled and used to be a fish soup but in modern times has transition over to a chicken soup. This soup is thickened with cream and egg yolks but otherwise is fairly straight forward. While it’s usually served with the chicken on the bones my husband really prefers not to have things served like that so I pulled it off the bone but it doesn’t change the flavor.
While this was a really delicious and hearty soup that would probably be especially good in cold weather the reality is that making stock, boiling the chicken, and doing all the vegetable prep in one day was a little bit more than I bargained for so by the time I sat down to eat this I was kind of exhausted and I feel like I didn’t enjoy this as much as I should have. Also I used an extra egg yolk and it didn’t thicken up quite as much as I wanted so I think I didn’t stew the extra stock down enough but I’m sure that’s just something you learn after making the recipe a few times.
This soup is worth making because it’s creamy and rich and delicious but just break down your chicken and make your stock ahead of time OR simply buy stock from the store to cut down on giving yourself 5 pots to clean to make this and more hours of leisure.
That’s it for 2018, see you in the future year of 2019!