Delicatessen

Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro come from a background in TV commercials and music videos and it shows in this their debut feature, Although evidently indebted to the dystopian mood and retro style of Terry Gilliam's masterpiece Brazil (1985), Delicatessen lacks that film's narrative breadth, indstead being much more of black comedy based on series of skilfully-connected set pieces and eccentric characters.

Dominique Pinon, who first came to our attention as the knife-throwing assassin in Diva (1981) is particularly good in the central role of Louison, an ex-circus clown who answers an ad for work as a handyman for Clapet (Jean-Claude Dreyfus) a butcher who offers him room and board above his shop. The butcher's clumsy and near-sighted daughter, Julie (Marie-Laure Dougnac), falls in love with him but Clapet has him sized up as an upcoming meat tray for his cannibalistic clientele.

The hi-jinx are set against some vaguely post-apocalyptic setting in which Clapet and his collaborators parallel the Nazis and Vichy French and some troglydytic vegetarians function as WWII resistance fighters. This aspect is never developed in any really meaningful way but probably will stand out to a nativeaudience Jeunet and Caro instead focussing on the gags which are conceptually and visually inventive, full of brio and often funny in a Grand Guignol way.

FYI: Jeunet and Caro would subsequently collaborate on similarly styled films such as City Of Lost Children (1995) but this remains their finest hour .Jeunet went solo for his other best-known film,  Amelie, (2001) in which Pinon also featured.

 

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