Micmacs (2009)
Certified: 14
Duration: 105 minutes
Directed by: Jean Pierre Jeunet
Starring: Dany Boon, Dominique Pinon, Andrè Dussollier, Jean-Pierre Marielle, Julie Ferrer, Yolande Moreau, Michel Crèmadés, Nicholas Marié, Omar Sy, Marie-Julie Baup
KRS release
Jean Pierre Jeunet is one of the most whimsical, inventive and innovative directors around. His Delicatessen (1991), City of Lost Children (1995) and Amelie (2001) are three of modern cinema’s best moments. The only thing about Micmacs is that it explores nothing new for the director and he seems to be emulating the style he had pioneered in his previous films.
This is a minor detraction indeed as Micmacs far surpasses other directors’ best works and has an energy, joie de vivre and grotesque fantasy to it that make it a very entertaining watch. As regards the balance of surrealism versus the whimsical, it is the whimsical that wins in this film.
When Bazil (Dany Boon) was still a child, his father was killed in an attempt to defuse a landmine. Thirty years later Bazil is a video shop clerk in Paris and we find him watching the classic The Big Sleep. At a certain point, Bazil hears gunfire in the street, goes outside and is hit by a stray bullet. The bullet is left lodged in his brain as taking it out could prove to be very dangerous.
When he goes back to his old job, he finds that his position has been taken by someone else. So he starts living a homeless life, finding ingenious ways to survive.
He ends up meeting Slammer (Jean-Pierre Marielle) who is also homeless. Slammer takes him to a trash dump where he lives under all the junk along with fellow outcasts. These include Mama Chow (Yolande Moreau), the group’s cook and leader, the extremely flexible Elastic Girl (Julie Ferrer), human cannonball Buster (Dominque Pinon), inventor Tiny Pete (Michel Crèmadés) and the very mathematical Calculator (Marie Julie Baup).
While looking for trash, Bazil finds two different offices/factories opposite each other that produce munitions and weapons in competition with each other. One factory had made the bullet in his brain, the other the landmine that killed his father. After meeting both factories’ CEOs he embarks on a plan, along with his weird band of friends, to bring the two warmongers down.
Dany Boon makes for a Droopy kind of hero who is all wide-eyed, yet harbouring a sense of sadness. He is the perfect Jeunet hero, a man who knows he inhabits a visually arresting world, although Mr Boon lacks the appeal of Audrey Tautou in Amelie. In the film, his mind goes roaming off in free thought that really brings a very wild sense to the way he views the world. These scenes really live up to the translation of the film’s title which in full is Micmacs à Tire-Larigot (Non Stop Madness). In a way, this title along with the breakneck pace, the imaginative slapstick and visual jokes, are a throwback to silent cinema of the times of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton with a healthy dose of the Marx Brothers.
The story is not that strong to survive feature-length status and at times it strains under the weight. This has never been Mr Jenuet’s forte so, once again, he uses delightful visual inventiveness to keep us on our toes and cover up plot shortcomings.
Mr Jeunet succeeds most in giving his audience a zany feel that anything is possible, where one scene constantly ups the ante on the preceding one.
The film is a crime caper and, as such, when romance blooms it is a bit contrived and the sparks are not that well manifested. The eccentricities on show in this movie add more charisma and personality to this clever outing, which, while not the director’s best, is a film that will more than run circles around many of Hollywood’s offerings.