Micmacs
By Nick Manteris · 0 Comments · Leave a Comment
Micmacs is the newest film from French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Those that recognize his name probably either love him for his beautiful masterpiece, Amélie or hate him for Alien Resurrection, the mess that destroyed the Alien franchise. For good or bad – or possibly a little of both – this film earns a spot that rests somewhere between those two extremes. The full French title is Micmacs à tire-larigot, which, depending on where you look, is translated as “Non-stop shenanigans/madness,” “a whole load of dodgy deals,” “a lot of manipulation” or “plenty of troubles/puzzle/confusion.” Interestingly enough, all of these translations can be applied to the story easily enough, in one way or another.
At its heart, Micmacs is a revenge tale (with a heart of gold) and the (perceived) offenders (presumably) deserve their fates…I mean, just look at the way they eat their shrimp. The serious topics of real-world weapons and arms dealers are offset by wacky comedy and a childlike innocence, so the vengeance in Micmacs is not the typical Hollywood flavor. (Sidenote: I’m not sure why this movie earned an R rating, but if you’ve seen This Film Is Not Yet Rated then you know how incredibly stringent the guidelines are, so there must be some “legitimate” reason.)
In the past, Jeunet’s quirky characters served the story in some way, but this time the roles seem eccentric for the sake of eccentricity and – while some of their quirks seem specifically designed for the events that unfold – others serve no discernable purpose. For example, the protagonist, Bazil, is adept at lip-syncing and he does this numerous times (with movies and other characters) during the film but it’s only for the audience’s pleasure. His skill is never used proactively…to, for instance, impersonate another character using a recording of their voice, or anything like that. Also, one of the other members of the group assembles mechanical art sculptures, but they mainly function as (interesting) distractions from the film…the only truly essential gadget that he makes is the alarm clock used during the cannonball sequence. There’s another character that talks in proverbs, a choice probably made purely for comedy, though, sadly, I suspect a good deal of the humor was lost in translation.
- Score
- 7/10
I would recommend this film for (French-speakers, film students and) anyone that likes Jean-Pierre Jeunet, but that recommendation comes with a disclaimer: from a storytelling/characterization standpoint, Micmacs is his weakest film. On a purely visual basis, however – like all of Jeunet’s other movies – it looks spectacular…his style is distinctive and he’s becoming more accomplished at capturing interesting environments on film. It’s a pity that subtitles invariably require one to miss some of the moments in a case like this. (It’s almost enough to make one learn the French language.) For anyone else, the movie is definitely worth experiencing, but The City of Lost Children and Delicatessen should be way ahead of it on your Netflix queue.
