Delicatessen (1991)
Directed by
Marc Caro
Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Writing credits
Gilles Adrien
and the Directors
Cast overview, first billed only:
Pascal Benezech …. Tried to Escape
Dominique Pinon …. Louison
Marie-Laure Dougnac …. Julie Clapet
Jean-Claude Dreyfus …. Clapet
Karin Viard …. Mademoiselle Plusse
Ticky Holgado …. Marcel Tapioca
Anne-Marie Pisani …. Madame Tapioca
Boban Janevski …. Young Rascal
Mikaël Todde …. Young Rascal
Edith Ker …. Grandmother
Rufus …. Robert Kube
Jacques Mathou …. Roger
Howard Vernon …. Frog Man
Chick Ortega …. Postman
Silvie Laguna …. Aurore Interligator
Rated R: For violence. (Which is laughable. There is no reason this movie deserves anything more than a pg-13)
Running Time: 100 minutes
Release Date: May 2nd
The Film
In Delicatessen, we got a post-apocalyptic France where for some reason or another all food is scarce. The results of this thing are A. grains being used as currency and B. people have stopped frowning upon cannibalism. A clown whose monkey partner was recently eaten answers a classified ad to work as a super in an apartment complex above a cannibalistic butcher shop and run by the butcher. The meatman plans on serving clown meat to his tenants as soon as said clown finishes up some of the odd jobs around the building. But the butcher’s master plan comes into jeopardy when his myopic daughter falls for the clown and turns to sewer dwellers for a rescue.
We’ve got about five dead bodies, some antenna fu, leg copping, one exploding gun, numerous failed suicide attempts, Gaslighting, gratuitous cinema verite, and old lady endangerment.
If you liked Amelie, you’ll probably like this movie, especially if you thought Amelie needed more cannibalism. I didn’t particularly like Amelie, nor do I particularly care for this flick. It’s just not my thing. I’d probably enjoy it as a comic book (which is a medium that the French give a bit more legitimacy than us Yanks).
Anyways, I’ll describe Delicatessen some to see if it is your thing. Though it does have dark subject matter, the comedy is pretty light-hearted, and we don’t really have any gore, onscreen flesh eating, or anything particularly disturbing. The movie is heavy on the short lens giving it that “silly” Raising Arizona look to it. The style is consistent, the tone fairly even, and the setting somewhat muddled.
To be cliche, it is a lot of style, not a lot of substance.
STORY: 6/10
ACTING: 6/10
ORIGINALITY: 8/10
LOOK/FEEL: 8/10
ENTERTAINMENT VALUE: 6/10
TOTAL POINTS: 34/50
FINAL SCORE: 7
The DVD
The Tech stuff: The film looks and sounds great. A couple of notes.
1: Everything is in French with English subtitles. You can monkey around and get Spanish subtitles if you really want.
2: Speaking of the subtitles, they are a little sloppy. Some idioms aren’t translated particularly well, and there are some stupid mistakes such as, “an madhouse.”
3: The Scene Selection Menus are laid out well, and don’t have any noticeable loading time (which is good).
4: I found no Easter Eggs.
Feature Commentary by Jeunet: Caro is doesn’t like commentary tracks, so it is a one man show. It is pretty entertaining, especially considering that it is a 1 person job and more than ten years passed between the making of the film and the commentary track.
Fine Cooked Meat: a 13 minute “making of” featurette. Not so much a documentary as it is mostly just random shots from the filming of the Delicatessen. So, basically a 13 minute montage.
The Archive of Jean-Pierre Jeunet: 8 minutes of audition and rehearsal footage.
Theatrical Trailer: They used the “Stomp” like sequence in the film as the trailer. Oh, those crazy frogs. While it doesn’t have much to do with the rest of the goings-on in the flick, it does mitigate the need for multiple versions of the trailer for other languages.
Delicatessen Teasers: A number of the teaser trailers, all of which are only about 10 seconds long.
DVD Score: This is the only English subtitle DVD of the film out currently. So while the disc itself is nothing special, if you like the movie, you probably want to own it on something that looks this nice. 7/10
