Stars: Dany Boon, Andre Dussollier, Nicholas Marie
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Release Date: December 14, 2010
MPAA Rating: R
I had no clue what Micmacs was and hadn't even heard anyone say anything about the film. When I looked up the title on the IMDB website, there on the cover was a middle-aged man looking a little dumbfounded, wearing pants with suspenders and a long-sleeved wool sweater. So I was completely lost as to why this would be a suggestion for us to write a review on. Then I started to look at the page more closely to discover that the film was directed by Jean Pierre Jeunet. He is a wonderful, self-taught director that has done some really great foreign film work. He has an interesting way of visualizing how a movie should look, showcases different camera angles, has good character development and overall tells an enchanting story.
Micmacs begins with a boy, Bazil, whose father is just killed by a landmine in Morocco. On the day of the funeral, a messenger returns the father's belongings to the family. The young boy discovers a collection of photographs in a box taken after the incident. Upon closer investigation, he discovers the manufacturer of the landmines is La Vigilante De L'armement. His mother, dealing with her grief, sends her son away to a Catholic boarding school. Bazil cannot stand the harsh treatment inflicted by the nuns and runs away.
We meet him again 30 years later and he has become a video rental clerk at Matador Video. We find him one evening relaxing at his job watching an old Bacall and Bogart film, lip-syncing the lines of the movie. The film has ended and his attention is now drawn to the sound of gunfire outside. Someone in a black car is dueling with a person on a motorcycle. A bullet flies through the air, strikes the front glass window of the video shop and soars right past Bazil. Then suddenly the car crashes, the driver falls out and shoots one final shot at the biker. The biker slips on the wet pavement and loses his grip on the gun. The weapon goes soaring up and strikes the ground just so, that it fires again. The bullet, has found a new home, right in Bazil's forehead. The doctors at the hospital contemplate whether to remove the bullet because if they do he could become a vegetable. If they don't, he could die any second. They flip a coin and the decision is to leave it in. "He'll drive airport security wild."
After being released from the hospital, Bazil returns home only to discover that the landlord has changed the locks and his poessions are gone. He still has his job so not all is hopeless. When he arrives at work, he finds that he has been replaced by a young and attractive girl. As he is leaving, she runs up to him and hands him the shell to one of the bullets that had been fired the night of the accident. He takes it obligingly and looks it over to see the name Les Arsenaux D'Aubervilliers printed on it. He puts it in his pocket and decides to find someplace to sleep for the night. Now homeless, jobless, and without a family, he takes refuge in the streets. His only form of income is from the coins that passersby drop into his hat as he performs pantomime in the plaza.
One day while performing, a fellow homeless man calls him over. The man introduces himself as Slammer, due to his time in jail, and that he might know of a family that would be willing to adopt Bazil. Intrigued, he follows Slammer to a junkyard and enters a home built from of all sorts of trash. Inside the cavernous heap he is greeted by several other residents. There is Tiny Pete, a mechanical master, Calculator, who can eye exact measurements with ease, Remington, an ethnographer, Buster, a human cannonball with the mission to get back in the Guinness Book of World Records, Mama Chow, a motherly type, and the Contortionist. He is welcomed to the family.
After salvaging some interesting rubbish, Bazil is returning home in his three-wheeled truck. A few things fall out while he is driving and he stops to retrieve them. Bending down, he sees in the reflection of a puddle a familiar image. It is the office of La Vigilante De L'armement and across the street is the office of Les Arsenaux D'Aubervilliers. A little shocked that the two companies, that have brought the most turmoil his life, are right there beside him. He decides to go in La Vigilante to speak to the president about the bullet that now resides in his head. The president Mr. De Fenouillet wants nothing to do with him. After being thrown out, Bazil sneaks into a party for the chief at Les Arsenaux. Mr. Francois Marconi is giving a speech about how happy he is that the company is doing so well and how he regrets nothing. At that moment Bazil plans to take revenge against both of these men and their companies with the help of his new family.
Jean Pierre Jeunet has directed such films as City of the Lost Children, Delicatessen, Amelie, A Very Long Engagement and a few others. He has the most interesting way of presenting a film and the cinematography is just so unique. The colors have this muted strength like the intensity of when it is about to rain and the sky turns a purplish gray which causes the leaves on the trees to appear a more vibrant green. Jeunet's films are always a delight to watch and it's enjoyable to find Dominique Pinon. He is in every one of Jeunet's films. It's like a Where's Waldo, but you are looking for this short stocky man with great big wrinkly smile. I really enjoyed Micmacs and would be willing to watch it again, but the storyline wasn't hugely memorable. Interesting, but not necessarily memorable.
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