I haven't seen this movie since the early 1990's but it holds a soft spot in my heart. This movie once helped me fall in love. A guy, I met through friends, and I happened to discover that we both loved this film. And while attending Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro's next film, City of Lost Children (1995) with him I shockingly discovered that he strongly resembled the star of that first film (who was also acting in the film we were watching at the time), Dominique Pinon. Pinon possesses one of the most wonderful faces in the world, so wonderfully mobile and pliable, as if made of rubber. In one moment, he is comical looking, and in another, sweetly handsome. (To be truthful, the real guy was way more sweetly handsome than comical looking.)
I constantly thought of this movie in the years since first seeing it and everything came back watching it last night through Netflix.
- The post-apocalyptic world where man literally eats man because of an unexplained famine.
- The assembly workers who work at home making those things that make cow noises when you tip them. They should really call them Cow Tippers. Wouldn't that be cool?
- The rich apartment dweller who tries to end her life with elaborate Rube Goldberg-like suicide machines.
- The subterranean Troglodytes who live as vegetarian rebels beneath the cities.
- The former circus clown, Louison (Pinon) who plays a musical saw.
- His myopic girlfriend Julie (you must hear it the way the French say Julie!) and her father, the butcher, who places a handyman ad in the paper whenever it's time for a new meal.
- The "musical" sequences, seen above and in the clip below.
- The movies gangrene-tinged look which shares it's green, red, and brown color scheme with both City of Lost Children, where it shows a stronger emphasis on the brown and Amelie (Jeunet's later solo project) which uses more of the green and red.
Now I have to see Un Long Dimanche de Fiancailles, or A Very Long Engagement, the only Jeunet film I have not seen.
3 comments:
I saw this a couple of times in college and enjoyed it very much.
City of Lost Children & Amelie are the two I've seen and loved. Have wanted to see A Very Long Engagement and now will queue Delicatessen. Isn't it great how movies and music are wrapped so tightly to key memories?
I adore this movie, as well as City of Lost Children and Amelie. Thank you for posting about it. It helped me to fall in love as well, as it is one of the first movies my husband and I ever saw together. We both loved it which I think says something about what was meant to be. Tres bon.
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