"The French are world renowned for their cuisine, so leave it to iconoclastic directors Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet to set their first movie in post-apocalyptic France where there is very little food and no meat. Well, almost no meat. Delicatessen is a high voltage variation on Sweeney Todd, set in a time when people will eat just about anything ... or anyone.
[...]
...a catastrophic meltdown of some sort has left thick toxic
yellow smog hanging over the city, and killed almost all the animals in the world.
With lots of mouths to feed people had to seek out alternative forms of animal protein. This is where Louison comes in. The residents of this particular building have come up with an interesting way to
procure meat: they hire it. Louison is the latest in a string of
superintendents whom the tenants plan to butcher and eat. Clown stew, anyone?
A romance with the butcher's myopic daughter keeps him off his neighbor's dinner tables for a time, but as their hunger grows, his chances of survival get slimmer. [...]
Delicatessens apartment building is populated with many
memorably grotesque comic characters. [...]
In their feature film debut co-directors Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeuriet show a great deal of control, keeping this disparate group of characters intriguing and captivating, while grounding a story that seems ready to take tangential flight. Their sense of comic pacing is dead on, particularly in a scene that starts off with the butcher and
his mistress in bed, the motion of their lovemaking causing the mattress springs to squeak rhythmically. Soon, as the camera cuts from one apartment to another we are treated to a symphony of household sounds
playing in concert with the squeaky springs. The toymaker's drill keeps time, as do the grandmother's knitting needles. The piece builds with the addition of a bicycle pump, a cello, and a metronome. Louison paints the hallway ceiling to the beat, using his suspenders as a
bungee cord so he can reach the awkward parts. It is a beautifully realized sequence, expertly edited and paced, that ends with a frenzy of action.
Stylistically Delicatessen owes more to music videos and
animator Tex Avery's feverishly wild Bugs Bunny cartoons than to other
post-apocalypse movies [...] Shades of Terry Gilliam and David Lynch shine through the motivation and
execution of this film, but Caro and Jeunet are such mavericks that every camera move, every scene in this film feels fresh and alive.
Cinematographer Darius Khondji, who created the look of David Fincher's menacing Seyen, helps put their dark vision on celluloid.
The script, by famous comic book author Gilles Adrien, constantly keeps the viewer off guard. The basic story is bizarre but fairly
simple, but it is his eccentric vision of the dystopian future that confounds
and amazes. He has created a dark and moody world worthy of any serious science-fiction movie, but at the same time filled it with belly
laughs. While being propelled through this crazy world it is impossible to
guess
what will happen next.
[...]
After the success of Delicatessen, Caro and Jeunet teamed up
once more for the bizarre but entertaining The City of Lost Children (1995) [...] That was Caro's last film, although Jeunet has had international success with 1997's Alien: Resurrection and the enchanting Amelie in 2001."
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