Delicatessen (1991)

Before I talk about Delicatessen, I want to talk about an experience I had seeing the other joint venture between Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro. That being The City of Lost Children, starring Ron Perlman. It was perhaps one of the more intrepidly romantic events of my film going life, as I trundled along to a local Arts Cinema to see this film that I'd heard interesting things about. The problem is that the theatre only had the film on VHS, rather than on actual film stock. Now, we all know that VHS was never the greatest format and I can't say that it really did itself any great favours when its picture was projected on a 40 ft screen and its sound was forced through a state of the art surround sound system. The City of Lost Children, much like Delicatessen, has a thick, dense and dark bleakness to it, which I can't really say helped the VHS projection's cause. It was an awful way to see a film! Anyway, who am I to complain when admission was just £1?

Fast forward three years to last night, when I finally got the chance to sit and watch Delicatessen on DVD. It astounds me that the same Jean-Pierre Jeunet could have a hand in this and then go on to direct one of the brightest, most colourful pictures ever committed to film. That's range and talent for you. Delicatessen is set in a miserable post-apocalyptic future, where The Butcher keeps a boarding house and employs unsuspecting handymen to maintain it, before killing them and feeding them to his cannibal tenants. Yeah, that kind of dark.

But it's not all bad. In fact, it's kind of good. Fun and harrowing, the tenants and The Butcher are larger than life, quirky and charismatic despite the awfulness outside of their doors. There's a kind of mad cap humour to it, seemingly lifted straight from a bunch of old cartoons. In particular, there's the scene where The Butcher is enjoying a tumble in the sack with his wife, their motions make the bed squeak in a rhythm that is maintained as the shot cuts to the other tenants who each add their own sound to the melody. The butcher's daughter plays her cello, an older tenant beats a rug and Louison paints the ceiling. The scene formed the trailer for the film's North American release. See it for yourself here:

Lousion is our main character and the next victim for The Butcher and a boarding house full of hungry tenants. He is played by Dominique Pinon, who has appeared in a number of Jeunet's other productions, including Amelie and the aforementioned City of Lost Children. Louison is a recently retired clown, having quit the circus when his chimpanzee sidekick was killed and eaten. Long story short, The Butcher's daughter, Julie, falls in love with him and seeks help to save him. That help comes from the Troglodytes, underground rebels that literally live underground. Their assistance adds to the mayhem in a climactic scene that sees the boarding house blown up and then flooded.

The real strength of this film is in its range of characters. They exist in an awful, awful world, but they all instill a sense of optimism in the audience through their vibrancy, even as they seek to commit awful acts against the other tenants. They're the real colour in the film. One tenant believes that she's gone mad as she hears voices all around her when she's alone. This drives her to several failed suicide attempts. These attempts aren't sad or depressing, they're more desperately funny, black comedy at its smartest and purest.

Admittedly, the second third of the film flounders as the plot moves on from the humorous set pieces of the first act to begin setting up the climax. It's a shame, because the first act had a great deal of potential and seemed to promise to continue in the same vein. Instead, it seemed to lose focus before regaining composure for a satisfying conclusion. Regardless, this is certainly one of the better black comedies that you could wish to see and recommended viewing for anyone that wishes to study the influences on French cinema in the past fifteen years.

Links: Delicatessen (IMDb) Jean-Pierre Jeunet Marc Caro Dominique Pinon