Micmacs

Anyone who's seen Amelie or The City of Lost Children will know that a new film by Jean-Pierre Jeunet is cause for excitement.

True, he's had his disappointments as well - I'm thinking of Alien: Resurrection in particular - but at his purest Jeunet brings a visual excitement and  sense of wonder that is almost unparalleled in modern cinema.

Put simply, a Jeunet movie is a feast for the eyes, and a wholly  original cinematic experience. You can't get much higher praise.

Fans of Jeunet will be pleased to hear that Micmacs (released in France as Micmacs a tire-larigot) sees him returning to his trademark fantasies, and it often feels like a direct sequel to Delicatessen and Amelie.  In fact the more observant among you will note a few explicit  references to his previous movies hidden in the background - Jeunet must  have been in a particularly playful mood when he shot this one.

Micmacs tells the story of Bazil (Dany Boon), a double-victim of  the arms trade who decides to take matters into his own hands. Bazil's  father is killed by a landmine when he's still young, and after a  troubled childhood he winds up working in a video store. One day he  witnesses a shooting, however, and a stray bullet lodges in Bazil's  brain.

So far, so (relatively) normal - but it's here that things start to get  truly weird. It's unclear whether what follows is simply the product of  Bazil's damaged mind, or if we're supposed to take Jeunet's inventions  at face value. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter - because  Micmacs never stops being fun.

Bazil befriends a group of scavengers who eke out an existence salvaging  and repairing trash (they include Jeunet regular Dominique Pinon), but  when he happens across the two rival arms companies who produced the  mine that killed his father, and the bullet that's lodged in his own  brain, he starts to hatch a scheme. With the help of his new friends he  sets about getting his revenge on the money-hungry warmongers, all the  while accidentally falling in love with contortionist Elastic Girl  (Julie Ferrier).

At times Micmacs tries just a little too hard to maintain the  frenetic pace that Jeunet sets, and a few of the more fantastical  sequences stretch his technical capabilities almost as much as our  credulity. There's never a satisfying resolution to the question of  whether Bazil is merely fantasizing it all, either, and the explicit  criticism of the arms trade is frequently laid on in smotheringly heavy  doses.

If Micmacs never quite lives up to the standards set by Amelie and Delicatessen,  though, we really shouldn't hold that against it, and it still provides  us with an entertaining and visually extravagant joyride of a movie.  The original French title roughly translates as 'Non-stop shenanigans',  and that gives you as thorough a summary of the film as you're likely to  get. Fun, often nonsensical, and inimitably Jeunet.

4/5

French cinema hasn’t been critically popular in the last couple of decades ever since the great French auteurs stopped making films, such as Godard, Truffaut, Melville, and Malle. However, there are always a select few filmmakers attempting to bring their own style, presence, and feeling to the big screen and one of those rare French filmmakers is Jean Pierre-Jeunet. In Jeunet’s new film, Micmacs à tire-larigot, the inventive director brings his unique visual presence, strength for diverse characters, and outrageous presentation style that he has so successfully developed over the years with such films as Amelie, The City of Lost Children, A Very Long Engagement, and Delicatessen. Micmacs à tire-larigot, otherwise known as MicMacs, is sort of like an absurd take on the narrative of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo but adding in the French philosophical flair and the modern debate between weapons and their creators. Of course the film is a bit disjointed in places, making its chaotic vision distract the audience more than it brings them further into the plots twists and turns, but overall the film is an enjoyable presentation of how vivid characters and intriguing visuals can make for beautiful, if not perfect, filmmaking.
            MicMacs is Jeunet’s take on modern weaponry and its relation to the average citizen, sort of like how Howard Hawk’s Scarface was a lecture on gang violence. Setting the vision of the film around a lonesome video store owner named Bazil, played effectively by French character actor Dany Boon, who is tragically shot in the head by a stray bullet from gang violence. The bullet is lodged in his brain, which causes severe headaches, but is able to live and tries to live his life day by day. One of the fault’s of MicMacs is quite present in the beginning and that is its tone in relation to the protagonist’s tragedies. The exposition moves quite quickly on the screen presenting the death of his father in a distant fashion while being practically comedic in relation to the unfortunate coincidence that is Bazil’s bullet wound. Falling into a group of other misfits, who guard a trash yard, Bazil plans out his revenge against the two weapons manufacturers who he blames for causing his unfortunate predicament as well as his father’s death. Obviously the film takes the stance that it’s the creator of the weapon that is responsible, and proceeds to demonstrate just how bad these two CEOs are in the compromises they make and their basic attitude towards the average person. While this sentiment can be debated, the film keeps it controlled until the conclusion where it becomes a tad preachy. However, this fact doesn’t take away from the amusing presentation of the narrative that Jeunet is known for in his unique and recognizable style.
            Every image in MicMacs is just a cinematographer’s dream using angles, rough lighting, delicate movements, and intriguing blocking to make every shot impress and engross you more into how the story is flowing. When Bazil gets shot in the beginning of the film, as he is reciting lines from a Bogart and Bacall film High Sierra, there is a magnificent use of framing on his eyes from a high point looking down as the blood drips down his face. Moments such as these certainly make the texture of the film overtly present and are layered throughout all of Jeunet’s films, including this one. Another strength Micmacs possesses is the natural sets that create a surprisingly absurd yet believable atmosphere. It’s when the fast paced editing and chaotic character moments try to be eye catching and humorous but actually distract us from getting involved with the situations at hand. It certainly gets us involved in the protagonist’s mental state, but at times it’s distracting as a whole making the film a bit disjointed in the end. The message of the film is also very, well French, introducing a bit of their idealistic view on weapons while never explaining why that view is the correct one. Depending on just having the moral high ground without explaining why is a tad pretentious, though the film isn’t really about lecturing you. Instead the film sets out to use humor and scenario predicaments to entertain you with intriguing characters that are brought to life by an eclectic cast that will ease you through the more preachy moments of the script.
            The fresh and inventive presentation of Jeunet’s films wouldn’t be what they are without the great casts he chooses to present these larger than life characters he has the ability to create. Dany Boon as the mystifyingly weird Bazil is graceful in his movements and has some of the weirdest facial expressions to ever be on the big screen, but has enough sympathetic gestures and genuine emotion to never alienate us. But really it’s the motley crew that live in the strange junkyard that are the core to MicMacs utilizing all of their varying personalities and distinctive talents as actors to work so well off each of the others difficult tasks. Present among the group are familiar French character actors such as Omar Sy, Yolande Moreau, and Jean-Pierre Marielle. And, of course, Dominique Pinon as always provides his familiar and strange presence to Jeunet’s film as he has done numerous times before. This time Pinon even has a cameo as another one of his characters from Jeunet and Caro’s Delicatessen in a scene where a couple is playing music in an apartment. The two men who play the villains, Nicolas Marie and Andre Dussollier, make for convincing enough scumbags to make any audience member despise their side dealings and unethical compromises that are at the pivotal plot points of the film. Without these successful character depictions the absurdity and liveliness that the script intended to portray wouldn’t have been possible and the entertainment that is so evident in the final product can be dedicated to these fascinating performances.
            Jean Pierre-Jeunet hasn’t made a film in five years and his new film MicMacs marks a definite return to his form of hectic character driven comedy dramas quite reminiscent of his earlier works such as Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children. While this time the script gets a tad preachy with its modern setting and subject matter, its style is fresh when compared to the stale and formulaic filmmaking that has plagued Hollywood in the last 15 or so years. French film certainly hasn’t been up the standard it set itself back in the 60s, but filmmakers like Jeunet are attempting to bring the inventiveness and philosophical themed filmmaking French cinema was known for to a more accessible audience. MicMacs is a lively paced film that demonstrates a prowess in cinematography and character creation despite its overall disjointed narrative. Seeing as how the summer only really offers mindless films that are for supposedly pure entertainment, MicMacs is definitely a film that will stand above the rest as an inventive display of humorous filmmaking that remains original and consistent with Jeunet’s other masterful works.

It  seems Jean Pierre Jeunet did not appreciate the middling reception that A  Very Long Engagement received back in 2004, because it took him six  years to release another. And rather then the triumphant comeback we  were hoping for, he's delivered a film very similar to that in quality  if not in ambition. Its by no means bad. Its got his trademark creative  visuals and quirky humor, but the problem is it feels like a slight  regression for the man who made Amelie. This is perhaps Jeunet's  Tideland. A film that suffers slightly because of too much of the  director's personality, rather then the traditional not enough.

The  plot sees Bazil (Dany Boon) and his makeshift family of misfits try to  take revenge on the CEO'S of the armoury companies responsible for  making the stray bullet he caught in the head. If that sounds cluttered,  incomprehensible and crazy, well that's because it is. Micmacs doesn't  bear much favor for explaining itself, because it is so enjoying its own  madcap adventure. We occassionally get to join in the fun, but the  entirely uncensored onslaught of quirk does wear on one's patience  slightly. Particularly when its given no base or explanation, as in the  first half hour, in which Bazil's induction into his new family is  handled with the nuance as your average episode of Pushng Daisies. Its  just basically rinsed in about forty-five seconds. Once the revenge plot  kicks in, and the movie switches from aimless indiefest to a con-man  movie, it picks itself up. In large part due to the performances of  Andre Dussollier and Nicolas Marie as the dastardly capitalist arms  dealers in question. They lend the film a bit more bite and personality,  and feel far more credible then any of heroes, all played to Ace  Ventura levels of mugging. And since no-one here was Jim Carrey, it was  not OK. Boon, who I've seen actually display acting talent in the past I  was a slight disappointed by, although his gift for Physical comedy  made up for an otherwise absent performance.

Its very creative in  design and in photography, few directors do more with the camera then  Jeunet, but its such a rambling, incoherent mess that the enjoyable  homeless Oceans Eleven quality of the last half hour can't quite make up  for it's previous discretions. I still hold out the hope that Amelie  isn't going to be the only truly great film this very talented director  ever makes, but I say it with less conviction the I used to, most  definately.

Rating: 6/10