• Reviews

• All
• Music
• DVDs
• Live
• Cinema
• TV
• Books
• Comic Books
• Video Games

Feb 21, 2011 Web Exclusive By Laura Studarus

Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet has made a career of exploring outsiders: hunted kids (City of Lost Children), rogue vegetarians (Delicatessen), and, perhaps most famously, shy dreamers (Amélie). Micmacs faithfully follows in these films’ heartfelt, Technicolor footsteps.

A Chaplin-esque love-letter to the impoverished Paris underbelly, sprinkled liberally with cartoon tropes, Micmacs stars Bazil (Danny Boon), a movie-obsessed slacker whose placid experience and head is ripped apart by a bullet. Turned onto the streets and turned into a Gallic Little Tramp, his fate takes a turn for the better, when he’s adopted by a gang of misfits—among them, a numbers wiz named Calculette (her mother was a seamstress, and her father was a yardman, of course), a love-sick contortionist (a permanently smirking Julie Ferrier), and a human cannon ball (played by Jeunet mainstay, Dominique Pinon). The conflict, as the group pits the city’s two weapons manufactures against each other, is a classic MacGuffin—action for action’s sake. But it’s performed with a delicious, wink-free sincerity, never fully achieved by similarly plotted film Oceans 11. And while the ultimate outcome is never thrown into question, the circuitous route characters take in delivering justice while securing their personal bliss is as surprising as it is visually stunning.

Extras include a commentary by the ever-thoughtful Jeunet, a conversation between Ferrier and Jeunet, and a recap of the film’s actual cartooned elements—all a must for fans that want to see how they did it without draining any of the film’s pure pleasures. (www.sonyclassics.com/micmacs)

Author rating: 8/10