Film Review: Delicatessen

Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet

French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet captured the hearts of movie going public with the incredibly sweet and funny Amelie in 2001, but his first film that brought him into the public view was Delicatessen. A film instantly recognizable as one of Jeunet's for its offbeat humour and zany scenes. Being a film from the early 90s it was clear early on that it hadn't aged well in the last 20 or so years and had a clear influence from Terry Gilliam in the way it was shot.

Unemployed circus clown Louison (Dominique Pinon) arrives at a dilapidated apartment building above a delicatessen looking for a place to stay and a job as a handyman, he is eventually hired by landlord Clapet (Jean-Claude Dreyfus) who has a track record of luring victims to the building then killing them and serving them as meat in his shop. In a futuristic post-apocalyptic France with food in short supply this is the best way for Clapet to make money. His plans to make Louison his next victim hit a snag when he forms a close bond with his daughter Julie (Marie-Laure Dougnac).

Louison (Dominique Pinon)

This film was bizarre from the outset with Jeunet using some quite simple jokes and a musical routine based around noises coming from the different apartments, it was more of the sweet-natured humour that was much better refined in Amelie and in this instance it completely fell flat. The plot itself is never really developed until a final act which just sees the entire set being trashed by various characters for little real reason, the introduction of the vegetarian troglodists just came across as a desperate attempt to fill in the time to make this a feature length movie.

To be honest the rest in between was rather uninspiring that I'm struggling to find the will to continue writing about it, one of the few redeeming scenes was when Julie invited Louison into her apartment and tries to pretend she doesn't need classes so plans out exactly how it will go she knows where everything is but it was really slim pickings.

1/4 Jeunet makes murder dull and zany humour tiring