Delicatessen

Jean-Pierre Jeunet & Marc Caro, France 1991, 97 minutes

This seminal French dark-comedy won a plethora of European Film awards, in addition to the 1993 Bafta for Best Film not in English Language, and firmly placed it’s two directors, Jeunet (The City of Lost Children, Amelie) and Caro (The City of Lost Children), on the map. The setting for the film is dusty post-apocalyptic future, where little by way of plant-life grows, animals are few, and the shady denizens of a macabre boarding house find inventive ways of combating starvation courtesy of the landlord Clapet (Jean Claude-Dreyfus), a butcher in every sense of the word.

Into this dangerous world arrives Louison, a clown (played by the charismatic Dominique Pinon- Amelie, Diva) who has fled the circus following the untimely demise of his closest companion. Here he finds a light in his otherwise dank existence in the form of the shy, polite Julie (Marie-Laure Dougnac), and through his attraction raises the ire of her father, Clapet. What ensues is a shocking yet hilarious tale rife with murder, cannibalism, and featuring one the most unrepentantly unerotic sex scenes ever.

As well as a multitude of brilliantly judged comic performances from the cast, Delicatessen benefits from the fine talents of it’s two directors who are ably supported by the excellent work of Director of Photography Darius Khondji (who would go on to work on such films as Seven) in creating a fascinating visual style for their film. While the influence of such directors as Terry Gilliam is clearly in evidence, Jeunet and Caro have infused much of their own unique character into this magnificently grim fable, making it a good choice for both lovers of European and cult film.

Review by Ben Wilkinson
Written for EUFS Programme Spring 2003

This is the first film feature of Jeunet & Caro (J&C) who later went on to make City of Lost Children and Alien: Resurrection. Delicatessen is again a futuristic fantasy, balancing simple and likeable characters with ingenious situations and special effects.

The film is set in a post nuclear war France where contamination has resulted in shortages of food, even for those with the resources to buy it. The film's hero - ex-clown Louison (Dominique Pinon, who also starred in City of Lost Children, Diva and Betty Blue (Director's Cut)) - arrives at a sinister apartment block seeking work as an odd job man, as advertised in the "Hard Times" newspaper. The block's owner is a butcher (quite literally) who hires a string of odd job men who, once they have done their work, are massacred and sold to the hungry tenants above (one way to deal with the GM food crisis I suppose...).

One problem is that the butcher's daughter Julie (Marie Laure Dougnan) has a habit of falling in love with the soon to be meal tickets. As she becomes more and more intimate with the "victims", tries to warn them of her father's intentions to kill and eat them...

This doesn't exactly sound like a bundle of laughs but J&C provide some extremely memorable and hilarious set pieces (such as the entire tenement block moving in time with the strokes of the butcher’s love-making, and the dreamlike bathroom scene later on in the film). J&C also provide a myriad of quirky characters to amuse us such as the delusional suicidal woman, the two brothers making sheep novelty joke toys, the underground resident with the snail farm in his rooms, the husband repairing his condoms with his bicycle repair kit and last (but not least) the underground vegetarian `Trogolodistes'.

J&C have (in my opinion) never surpassed Delicatessen in their career since, and nearly a decade later, it stands as a milestone in recent French cinema.

Review by Stephen Brennan
Taken from EUFS Programme Autumn 1999

French prodigies Jeunet and Caro wowed us all in `91 with this expressionist masterpiece, a film so unique and stunning it defies categorisation.

Set in a grimy, dystopian futuristic Paris, the film opens with a shy, introverted circus clown (played with sensitivity and humour by the rubber-faced Dominique Pinon) moving into a sinister tenement block above a butcher's shop. He soon learns, to his horror, that the landlord is coping with the meat crisis by feeding up his new tenants and then slaughtering them and feeding them to his old ones. This grisly premise may not sound too promising in the comedy stakes, but Jeunet and Caro manage to construct around it one of the most laugh-out-loud hilarious black comedies of recent years.

Collaborating with cinematographer Darius Khondji (who was responsible for the visual style of the equally dark and disturbing Se7en), the pair create a world populated by some of the oddest characters in cinema history. From the delusional, suicidal woman whose increasingly contrived and unsuccessful suicide attempts punctuate the film to the basement-dwellers who manufacture those little cow-moo novelty toys, not to mention the underground vegetarian movement, this is a film filled with memorable moments.

By turns terrifying (the cleaver-wielding butcher luring a little old lady out of her room) and hilarious (every occupant of the building subconsciously falling in sync with the rhythm of an amorous couple's squeaking mattress), this is truly one of those films after which you can truly say is "Well, that was... different".

"One of the most exciting first features of the '90s *****" - Empire

Review by Ben Stephens
Taken from EUFS Programme 1996-97

From the opening camera shots of the fog-covered building and the first sounds of the butcher sharpening his knife, Delicatessen immediately captivates the audience and transports it into a different world. The film is set either some time in the future or perhaps in an alternative past, and we soon learn that in this world there seems to be a severe shortage of food, and that animal meat is apparently not a problem for the tenants who live above the butchers shop - there the butcher kills people he takes in as oddjob men and then sells their various body parts to his tenants in exchange for lentils which seem to be the new currency.

The scene is set, before we seen the opening credits, in a manner which is guaranteed to ensure the audience's full attention but the story really begins when Loiuson (played by the wonderful Dominique Pinon), an ex-circus clown who is looking for work, arrives one day at the shop. The butcher takes him in, but his barbarous plans are somewhat complicated when his daughter Julie falls in love with the new tenant and proceeds to enlist the help of the underground vegetarian rebels, the Troglodites, to bring about his escape.

As a black comedy, Delicatessen is excellent; as a story it is captivating and intriguing; and as a warning, it is poignant, for there is undoubtedly a serious message underlying the film. Thoroughly entertaining, Delicatessen> is certainly a film unlike many others released recently - for a start, it's very good.

Review by Malcolm Maclaren
Taken from EUFS Programme 1993-94