Micmacs (2009)

4/5

Micmacs is a return to form for the exquisite Jean-Pierre Jeunet. The movie is as inventive, clever, and fun as all his other movies, with the expected bedazzling visual style and quirky, lovable heroes. The movie centers around Bazil (Boon). After being shot in the head by a stray bullet, he loses his job at a video rental store and takes to the streets for money. He is given shelter and friendship by a group of oddly-talented misfits (Pinon, Marielle, Ferrier, Moreau, Crémadès, Sy, Baup) who live underneath a garbage dump. One day he finds himself walking down a street separating the two biggest arms manufacturers in France. He gets it in his head--like the bullet that still resides there--to teach them a lesson for all the pain he's suffered at their hands, but he is going to need the help of all of his newfound friends.

The movie is simultaneously magical and believable. Jeunet creates a bizarre, exceptional world brimming with personalities instead of characters, spectacles instead of events, and mazes instead of plots. But it is a world that is self-contained, a world that survives under its own unique rules and regulations and not necessarily those of our world. His movies do not require you to suspend your disbelief so much as they require you to engage and engorge your belief, to open up your mind to match his own. Jeunet is full of imagination and, luckily for us, he is able to faithfully reproduce that same world for our benefit. His movies leave you with a grin on your face and a lightness in your soul.

But I have spent many words explaining why I like Jeunet and very little on why I like this movie. Micmacs is as technically proficient as any other Jeunet movie, and perhaps even a bit more ingenious, but it did not have the same oomph as Amélie or A Very Long Engagement. Nor did it have as clear or as relevant a message, at least for me (I found even less here than in Delicatessen). But none of that is a bad thing and none of that diminishes this movie in the slightest. Micmacs is overwhelmingly enjoyable and entertaining, otherworldly in the best possible way, and it is a movie that I would not hesitate to watch over and over again.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1149361/

A Very Long Engagement (2004)

5/5

Jean-Pierre Jeunet's A Very Long Engagement is a brilliantly-conceived and impeccably-created tapestry of emotion and perception that transcends its individual setting and story. The movie takes place around World War I and it concerns the young Mathilde (Tautou) and her lover Manech (Ulliel). In 1917, Manech had been traumatized by the vulgar and violent sights and actions of trench warfare. He got himself shot in the hand by the Germans in the hopes of being sent home injured. But instead he was court-martialed for self-mutilation and sentenced to No Man's Land at Bingo Crepuscule with four other unlucky souls. Three years later in 1920, Mathilde believes against all odds that Manech is still breathing and keeps her hope alive with simple superstitious gambles. She hires detective Germain Pire (which ironically translates to "Germain the Worst") to find out where he is. While following the winding trail, she soon discovers that Tina Lombardi (Cotillard), another soldier's lover, is also tracking the five men from Bingo Crespuscule. But instead of reuniting with her man, she ends up killing the soldiers involved in his unjust sentence.

This movie, like all of Jeunet's movies (and Tim Burton's), contains within it a fully-realized alternate world filled to the brim with small oddities and assumed rules. After watching for just a few minutes, you get an intimate sense of the beauty and hope of the people inhabiting this macabre and sinister environment. Both Tautou and Cotillard pull this off masterfully, putting the utmost heart and honesty into their decidedly disparate but equally compelling roles. They show the vast variability love can take on, from revenge to forgiveness. Their sadness--and their happiness--is seemingly palpable and absolutely heart-wrenching.

Technically, the film is incredible. It is so well-constructed that many of the shots and scenes seem airy and natural, despite their being planned down to the degree of the camera angle. The lights, the special effects, the cinematography, the sets, the costumes, the makeup; everything is pitch perfect and as beautiful as it could possibly be expected to be. The editing is precise down to the individual frame. The only complaint that could be lodged against the cinematics of the movie lie in its complicated storyline. It is easy to get lost in its labyrinthine plot. For me, however, that just made me want to watch the movie again and again so I could gather all the subtle details and clues and piece them together.

There are two things I absolutely love about this movie. The first is the concept of point of view and the unreliable narrator. It takes Rashomon on in a different and new light. It examines illusion in the absence of deception and hope in the absence of reason. With different points of view come different stories and different conclusions, but you soon realize that you can't always trust what you see... or what you think you see. The second is the relationship between Mathilde and Manech. Something about it--in its entire breadth and depth--is so pure and so innocent that you simply cannot believe for a second that war or even death can destroy it. It is somehow unbreakable, and the ending to the film incorporates that concept so fully and so brilliantly that I cannot speak about it highly enough. It is the perfect ending to a perfect movie. Watch this movie. And then watch it again. I hope you fall in love with it as much as I did.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0344510/

Delicatessen (1991)

4.9/5

Delicatessen, a film by Jeunet and Caro, is a wildly inventive and darkly comic foray into another world. The plot centers on a cannibalistic butcher landlord in a futuristic, depression-beset France. An ex-clown comes to the place looking for work and falls in love with the landlord's daughter. With seemingly effortless pacing and characterization, we come to know the bizarre tenants--their tics and habits, their wants and fears--just as much as we do the protagonists. This is a fully-realized apartment with fully-fleshed out inhabitants. Much like Tim Burton, Jeunet and Caro are able to create a wholly believable horror fantasy realm that is clever, fascinating, and endlessly addicting. It was an absolute joy to watch; my mouth was open in awe the entire time. The visual style was appealing, the editing lean and rapid, and the music evocative and integral. The acting was spot-on and the minimal dialogue served its purpose without bogging down the movie.

There were very few negatives. The biggest downside to the movie is trying to find a message in it. It's not really the kind of movie to carry a message though, so I don't really hold that against it. (It's just disappointing in light of Jeunet's later Amelie and A Very Long Engagement.) The drab yellow hue kind of got to you after a while, but that was kind of the point. And it made the ending that much more magical. Watch this movie; it is a treasure to behold.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101700/