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Jeremy Davies is Paul Ballard, an American wannabe director living in Paris. While he works as an editor on Codename Dragonfly, an Italian sci-fi coproduction in the vein of Barbarella, he makes his debut as a filmmaker, documenting his own life with his girlfriend Marlène (élodie Bouchez). But when Andrzej (Gérard Depardieu)—Codename Dragonfly's director—is fired by the producer following an artistic difference about the ending, Paul is promoted director with the mission to create a spectacular ending. His personal experimental work will take an unexpected turn as he falls in love with the actress Valentine (Angela Lindvall) and the Dragonfly character she plays in the sci-fi flick. An ironic comedy that has a certain affection for its protagonists, CQ alternates between Jeremy's life, his personal project and Codename Dragonfly, thus bringing the audience to watch three films in one. An interesting narrative, where the two films and Jeremy's life are intertwined, which not only creates suspense about the two films' endings but also offers us behind the scenes insight. While watching the pseudo-Barbarella Codename Dragonfly is certainly fun, this is the critique of the cinema of the era which prevails. Starting with the Gerard Depardieu character—who looks strangely like Françoise Sagan—in the skin of a tortured artist who wants to make a social message with his film. Shot during the events of May 1968, Codename Dragonfly introduces an extraterrestrial revolutionary (Billy Zane) resembling Che Guevara (an intrigue already outlined in Aelita, a 1924 silent Soviet film that mixed science fiction and socialism. The Italian producer symbolizes the great era of Cinnecita, while his character is built as a homage to Marcello Mastroianni. In the center of the film and cinema critique we find Jeremy, a Jean-Luc Godard in the making. Shot in black and white, his experimental film features close-ups of coffee cups and other "spectacular elements" that bring his girlfriend to exclaim that his film is "boring". The pedant movie critics he imagines seem to share the same opinion and his small film will only find success with a few intellectuals in a "film d'auteur" festival. Coppola nicely pokes fun of a certain pretentious cinema of the era and seems to locate the place of the director halfway between art and commercial cinema. His propensity to have visions indicates the unreal world far from reality in which filmmakers live (see the scene where he imagines himself before a group of critics but instead is sitting on the toilet). The film also features some winks, which isn't surprising from somebody who grew up with privileged access to the world of cinema. In addition to the presence of his sister in a cameo, it's hard to miss the ingenious mention to his father's glasses that are obviously like those of his real-life father, Francis Ford. The cast is impeccable, from Jeremy Davies who perfectly impersonates a timid artist to a jubilant Depardieu, a very Barbarella-esque Angela Lindvall and élodie Bouchez as a girlfriend who has had enough. CQ certainly sins of an excess of affection for its subject, since the film stretches a bit. Coppola spends too much time on the scenes from Codename Dragonfly, whose end finds inspiration a little too easily from Jeremy's night in Italy. To his credit, for his first film Roman Coppola knew to dissociate from his father's work, and the result proves his talent as a filmmaker. Between memories of youth and a gentle satire, CQ is an unpretentious film that fulfills its purpose of providing retro entertainment.
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