Micmacs (Micmacs à tire-larigot) (2009)

It's fair to say that Micmacs ticks all the boxes for a Jeunet film: it is odd, it features Dominique Pinon, it is set in a Paris that only exists in the imagination, and it has a cartoon-like violence that won't make you squeamish. Having said all that, I felt that it was too ... sober.

Bazil (played by local star Dany Boon) miraculously survives a drive-by shooting with a bullet conveniently stuck in an inoperable part of his brain. Presumed dead, he loses his home, his clothes and his job. Working as a mime on the streets of Paris, he runs into a gang of scavenger misfits, Micmacs, and joins their family. Meanwhile, he plans on taking down two weapons manufacturers (one is responsible for the bullet in his brain, the other is responsible for the land-mine that killed his father in North Africa when Bazil was young) and the Micmacs gladly help him on his quest. From that moment on, it becomes a farcical Mission: Impossible.

It vaguely reminded me of Delicatessen (1991) and its underground vegetarian guerrilla fighters, but it lacks the critical "odd" gene that made Delicatessen such a treat. Micmacs is too aware of its oddness, but tries very hard to conceal it behind one-dimensional characters and a very linear, suspense-free plot. The scenes inside the Micmacs' lair are fantastic and I was hoping that we would remain there for the majority of the film, but Jeunet takes his camera to very uninspiring locations that the film ends up looking pretty bland - a shocker for Jeunet.

My other problem  was the "message": I am as anti-weapon as the next guy and I would love to see the arms manufacturers and dealers go down in shame. But, do we really need that message in a film like this? Is Micmacs supposed to be a political film? And, more crucially, is it an effective political film? No. This should not have been a political film and it is not effective in its delivery.

For those of who have seen the very long A Very Long Engagement (2005), you will remember how disappointing it was compared to Amelie - two mutually exclusive films that share so much in common on the surface there is no avoiding comparison. Micmacs also asks for a similar comparison with Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children (1995). Unfortunately for Micmacs and for Jeunet, his latest is a failure as a stand-alone piece as well. Despite the brilliant self-referencing billboards that appear throughout the film.

Retro Review: The City of Lost Children (La cite des enfants perdus) (1995)

I first saw The City of Lost Children as a 14-year-old budding film enthusiast at a shopping mall cinema in Istanbul. It probably says a lot about our times that I can't imagine any shopping mall cinema would dare show this these days. I hadn't seen it since, until this weekend as a pre-game warm-up for Jean-Pierre Jeunet's new oddity, Micmacs. 

Over the years I grew a special fondness for Jeunet's weird and wonderful imagination. Though hit-and-miss (for every Amelie, there is an Alien: Resurrection that rears its ugly human/alien head), his films have always been visually engaging, though unnecessarily convoluted plot-wise. When he's good though, he is brilliant. Watching Delicatessen (1991) for the first time is like listening to Tool for the first time - you're not quite sure what hit you and you don't actually get it, but once you immerse yourself into it and just let go, there is no better feeling. The City of Lost Children is also such a film.

It did scare me shitless back in the day. In a Dickensian / Orwellian port city, the orphan street kids are kidnapped by a super-brainy psychopath who extracts their dreams to reverse his premature aging. Oh yes, there will be blood. One of the kids he has kidnapped happens to be the adopted little brother of a slightly Forrest Gumpy strongman, Ron Perlman. I can't think of an actor fitting a character as well as Perlman does, despite his dodgy French. A young pickpocket girl (Judith Vittete, or a Leon-era Nathalie Portman) also joins him in his quest to save his brother.

I can't really describe the visuals of this film - they have to be seen to believe. Co-directed by Marc Caro (Caro is responsible for 'art direction', Jeunet for 'mise-en-scene'), its imagination and vividness puts any floating mountain to shame (yes, Avatar-bashing is fun). And kudos to both Jeunet and Caro, they don't hold any punches. Let me set the scene: our brainy psycho uses an army of blind men to carry out the kidnappings. How do they kidnap children if they cannot see, you may ask. Well, he gives them an ocular device in return, which transmits the images to their brain. One of these 'cyclops' goes mad (it involves a flea, a tiny capsule with a mysterious green goo inside, and a hurdy-gurdy) and cuts the cord that transmits his friend's 'vision' to his brain. He then  plugs in his own device to his friend's brain. So this way his friend can see himself being choked to death. Pretty insane ...

It's not perfect by any means. There are way too many characters and there is more to look and marvel at than there is to feel. But, Perlman and little Vittete give excellent performances. Dominique Pinon (Jeunet regular) does what he does best in the multiple roles that he has to tackle. And you can actually sense how much Jeunet and Caro cared for this story; it's pretty obvious from its attention to detail. Sadly, they had to compromise on pace and plot to serve their visuals.