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If you’ve never read Philip K. Dick, being familiar with him only through one of the many big-budget sci-fi action films that bear his name in a “story by” credit, you likely think that his books are violent, pulpy actioners, short on character and long on battles, chases and twist endings. The thing is, they’re just not like that. At all.

Dick’s novels are often quiet, funny stories about the human condition, with a focus on awkward personal interactions, religious experiences (both drug induced and not), and quotidian matters involving making one’s way in the city, interfacing with popular culture, and living with a partner. Sure, they generally have a mindblowing sci-fi premise, but it’s always seemed that Dick’s books
would be better adapted by a romantic from the French new wave with an ear for dialogue like Eric Rohmer than the likes of Ridley Scott or Steven Spielberg. This was proven not only by Rohmer disciple Richard Linklater in his fantastic adaptation of A Scanner Darkly, but also by French director Jérôme Boivin in his adaptation of Dick’s Confessions of a Crap Artist, Barjo.

Cover to Dick’s Eye in the Sky, in which religious beliefs become literalized after a tour group is struck with a giant reality-bending laser.

Conflict arises when the Barjo of the title (known as Jack in Dick’s novel, but simply referred to as Barjo, or “nutcase,” here) moves in with his twin sister Fanfan after starting a fire in a previous home. While Barjo’s mental state is never described in language that would be in the DSM IV, he’s a kind of manic analyst, displaying something that looks a lot like OCD, and which compels him to write down and compare facts and figures of the most banal things. He recites and refers to those facts, figures and occasionally, snippets of overheard discussion, with passion in conversations, as though they point to something earth-shattering — yet they’re the kinds of things you’d generally notice every day.

Fanfan’s husband, Charles, is a seething ball of mid-life crisis and uncertainty, and can’t take the Barjo’s enthusiasm for the banal and lack of understanding of human motivations. The movie tracks the deterioration of relationships around their home. The opening scenes of the film would make you believe that Barjo is a wacky comedy about an eccentric pestering his sister and husband with misunderstandings, gadgets and strange scientific theories. The theme song (possibly the weirdest, catchiest theme song ever in film, in which a breathless Barjo repeats his name in a rhythmic fashion with chorus and strings) and the colorful sets and broad performances would lead you to believe this is a light comedy. But the film is meatier than that, especially as focus shifts from Barjo to the rest of the family he lives with.

While Barjo represents a man driven by analysis, Barjo’s sister and her husband represent the opposite, individuals operating purely on desire. Those emotions rise during the film, completely independent of Barjo’s involvement. Despite being in touch with their emotions and living what many would think to be the good life, Charles and Fanfan are shown as being slaves to their feelings and desires, where sex, pride, boredom and uncertainty cause their relationship to fall off the hinges. Over the course of the film, Barjo’s strange left-brained existence turns out to be relatively innocuous, as he cares for the animals and the children and lives a generally happy, productive life; the right-brained, “normal” lives of Charles and Fanfan deteriorate into petty violence and despair.

Cover to Valis, in which Philip K. Dick appears as himself, and discusses spirituality and religion with a version of himself known as Horselover Fat.

Many of Phil Dick’s works involve a sense of bifurcation, a person split into two discrete parts, one unable to function without the other. Confessions of a Crap Artist is no exception, and Barjo does a beautiful job of bringing that conflict to the screen. Boivin balances the childlike, manic curiosity and intensity of Barjo with the reigned-in emotional frustration of his sister, capturing the little verbal tics and embarrassing situations that make Dick’s work so compelling. Like most of Dick’s novels, it’s a little weird, a little funny, and surprisingly powerful.

The Philip K. Dick robot, which, shortly after its creation, disappeared.