MICMACS (Micmacs a tire-larigot) (2009)

In French with English subtitles
Genre: Fantasy/Comedy
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Cast: Dany Boon, André Dussollier, Nicolas Marié, Jean-Pierre Marielle, Yolande Moreau, Julie Ferrier, Omar Sy, Dominique Pinon, Michel Cremandes, Marie-Julie Baup
RunTime: 1 hr 46 mins
Released By: Cathay-Keris Films
Rating: NC-16 (Sexual References and Some Violence)
Official Website: http://micmacs.substance001.com/

Opening Day: 12 May 2011

Synopsis: Jean-Pierre Jeunet's gorgeously romantic AMELIE is unquestionably one of the most beloved and popular films of the last decade. Jeunet's amazing visual vocabulary and hyperactive imagination provide the foundation for all his cinematic creations, and this ability to be both playful and serious is used to devastating effect in his latest piece of movie magic MICMACS. First it was a mine that exploded in the middle of the Moroccan desert. Years later, it was a stray bullet that lodged in his brain... Bazil doesn't have much luck with weapons. The first made him an orphan, the second holds him on the brink of sudden, instant death. Released from the hospital after his accident, Bazil is homeless. Luckily, our inspired and gentle-natured dreamer is quickly taken in by a motley crew of junkyard dealers living in a veritable Ali Baba's cave. The group's talents and aspirations are as surprising as they are diverse: Remington, Calculator, Buster, Slammer, Elastic Girl, Tiny Pete and Mama Chow. Then one day, walking by two huge buildings, Bazil recognizes the logos of the weapons manufacturers that caused all of his misfortune. He sets out to take revenge, with the help of his faithful gang of wacky friends. Underdogs battling heartless industrial giants, our gang relive the battle of David and Goliath, with all the imagination and fantasy of Buster Keaton...

Movie Review:

After a brief hiatus, director Jean-Pierre Jeunet returns with his sixth feature film, "Micmacs" or "shenanigans" in its rough translation. And shenanigans is what we get in this film where he creates a world not too different from his acclaimed "Amelie" and something resembling the core moralities of "Delicatessen". A deft balance of spectacle and storytelling, "Micmacs" works as a feel-good supplement taken with the rest of his oeuvre. If there is an aversion to Jeunet's strong and at times overbearing sense of trademark whimsy, then there might be sequences here at invoke said ire but all things considered, "Micmacs" comes across a little more reserved and nails it on its storytelling more often than not as it uses rightfully uses its terrifically drawn world as a backdrop for its characters and set-pieces.

When Bazil (Danny Boon), a video-store clerk with an understandable grudge towards arms dealers and weapons manufacturers when a terrific opening sequence of events (again, like something out of "Amelie") enacts the history of his father's death when stepping on a landmine and when Bazil himself gets a bullet lodged in his head when a gun goes off across the street when escaping criminals make their getaway. This accident leaves Bazil and his doctors with a quandary -- remove the bullet and give him a life albeit as a vegetable, or leave the bullet in and have Bazil lead a full life but one that could end unpredictable at any given moment due to the injury. Bazil then meets and falls in with a group of motley misfit geniuses who live in a scrapheap and share the same disinclination for the weapons manufacturers that got Bazil in this state and they begin a plan to play off two of the manufacturers against each other to teach them a lesson.

The cadre of characters that Bazil meets are interesting enough that each of them may be able to hold up an entire film on their own but within the film's well-paced running time, we get to see them as a crazy circuit of laughter, romance and wonderment. Each of these characters are represented by a trait -- a wily ex-convict named Placard (Jean-Pierre Marielle); a mathematician with an amazing ability of calling up pertinent numbers in a second (Marie-Julie Baup), Remington (Omar Sy) a strangely effective quote-machine, Buster (Dominique Pinon) once upon a time record-holder for being a human cannonball, Tiny Pete (Michel Cremades) who invents everything out of nothing and Mama Chow (Yolande Moreau) the matriach of the group. And what is a Jeunet film without romance? There is also the cute contortionist (Julie Ferrier), who falls for Bazil. This group, or family as they would call it as called the Mic-macs.

With more than a slight resemblance to "Mystery Men" in its tone and set-up of underdog characters against a bigger badder enemy, Jeunet crafts this film with a film-lover's perspective in mind. From Bazil's own obsession with movies, starting its overt references with "The Big Sleep", through "Once Upon a Time in America" and "Metropolis" to "Taxi Driver", the film then hits thematic and narrative touchstones like "Yojimbo" when the group begins to play delicate yet elaborate games against the arms dealers. It all coheres when it takes on the nature of a heist movie like "Mission: Impossible". Endlessly inventive, "Micmacs" is a charmer.

Movie Rating:



(A wonderful new entry by Jeunet with fun storytelling and rich visuals)

Review by Justin Deimen