‘Deerskin’ a study of obsession … but by whom?

You have to wonder sometimes how movies get produced. I don’t mean just released by distributors, or edited, acted and directed, or even written. I mean, how do some movie ideas even get hatched in the brains of screenwriters?

That thought struck me last night when I finished watching “Deerskin,” a 77-minute exercise in exactly what I really can’t say. Written (so to speak) and directed (competently, I’ll give it that much) by French filmmaker Quentin Dupieux , “Deerskin” tells the story of a man’s obsession with a deerskin jacket.

At least that’s how it begins. The man, Georges (played by Jean Dujardin), drives what appears to be a great distance, and spends some $7,500 euros on the kind of fringed leather jacket that Dennis Hopper wore in “Easy Rider.”

He doesn’t seem to have any connection to anyone, except a just-severed relationship with a woman he talks to over the phone (his wife?). And he has no more money. But he makes a deal to stay in a remote-area hotel (the movie was shot in the scenic Pyrenees of southwestern France ), preens in front of a mirror in his new jacket, begins to play around with his new digital camcorder … and slowly goes mad.

Or perhaps madder. It’s hard to say whether he was ever truly sane. In any event, he begins to call himself a filmmaker, starts filming indiscriminately (always coming back to himself), “hires” a young woman ( Adele Haenel of “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” ) to “edit” his work (and give him money) and continues to buy more deerskin clothing (boots, pants, gloves).

Somewhere along the way, he begins talking to his jacket … I know, right? … and agrees to fulfill their common dream: to rid the world of all jackets except for the one he now owns. Which is the point where the film enters the realm that critic Owen Glieberman describes as a cross between “Barton Fink” and “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.”

Dujardin, probably known best to U.S. audiences as the star of the 2011 Oscar-winning film “The Artist” (for which he won a Best Actor Oscar), is fine as Georges. Haenel, too, is worth watching. And the scenery is, at times, stunning.

Dupieux, who also is a musician who performs under the stage name Mr. Oiso , is obviously a fan of absurdity. At what point, though, does absurdity become merely its own kind of self-referencing obsession?

Also, where can I get one of those stylin’ jackets?

“Deerskin” is streaming through the Magic Lantern Theater.