MICMACS
Jean-Pierre Jeunet has been dazzling me for more than 20 years with his painterly visions of Paris. It’s a Paris that is recognizable to those of us who have spent time or lived there, reminiscent of great French visionaries like Delacroix, Hugo, Balzac, Ingres. It’s not modernist. Jeunet’s old-fashioned, even though he crams his films with machines. But they are pre-modern – wheels, pulleys and steam engines. He’s a perfect film neoclassical realist.
This time he seems to have set up a battle with modernity. And perhaps, now that I think about it, all of his films are about that. We are placed in a subterranean community of odd balls, the hero being Bazil (Dany Boon), who is bent of avenging himself against two weapons manufacturers who are responsible for the loss of his family and the bullet that is still lodged in his brain. One day, as he is walking, he comes upon the factories located directly across the street from each other. They are manned by the two villains – Nicolas Thibault De Fenouillet (André Dussollier) and Francios Marconi (Nicolas Marié) – who are as obsessed with each other as they are with making a profit. Bazil has been adopted by an underground crew of junkyard dealers who help him put together a complicated plan to bring about the villains’ respective downfalls.
The “good guys,” the junkyard team, is a cornucopia of Jeunet’s and France’s best character actors. There is the supreme Yolande Moreau as Mama Chow, Jean-Pierre Marielle as the ex-con known as Slammer and Julie Ferrier, the Elastic Girl, who is described in the press notes as “always first to bend over backwards to help out others.” Reminington, Tiny Peter, Buster (Dominique Pinon, the obsessive boyfriend from Amelie) and Calculator round out the team, which uses all of its talents to help their friend.
Of all of Jeunet’s films, Amelie was the most popular. This is because its plot was the most linear and clear. Most of his other films wander. He’s a meanderer, veering wildly from one elaborate set piece to the next; and Micmacs hews more closely to that older tradition. It is not always clear what is going on or where exactly we are being taken. We have Bazil to guide us, and we have to trust that he and Jeunet will lead us to a satisfying conclusion. But, once there, we find the confusion so visually entertaining that it doesn’t much matter. After all, I couldn’t tell you anything about the plots of any of the highly-enjoyable Ocean’s Eleven caper movies, and I have seen at least two of them.
Like all of Jeunet’s films, Micmacs is a visual feast that zooms along at such a fast clip that you cannot help but be energized by it, even if you feel as if you are always trying to catch up. The denouement is a cleverly executed kidnapping that ties up what is ultimately a contemporary morality tale. It’s a wild ride with something serious to say.
Micmacs is now in theaters.
Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet; produced by Frédéric Brilliion and Gilles LeGrand; Director of Photography, Eric Duchene; music by Raphaël Beau.
With: Dany Boon (Bazil); André Dussolier (Nicolas thibault De Fenouillet); Nicolas Marié (Francois Marconi); Jean-Pierre Marielle (Slammer); Yolande Moreau (Mama Chow); Julie Ferrier (Elastic Girl); Omar Sy (Remington); Dominique Pinon (Buster); Michel Cremades (Tiny Pete); and Marie-Julie Baup (Calculator.)By Dianne L. Brooks
