As with any film directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Micmacs is a visual feast of color and spectacle that entertains and stuns the audience in fantastical style. The narrative and its eccentric characters are enthralling with each stellar performance delivered to stand out and impress. Jeunet is a master for cinematic theatrics and the slapstick circus comedy that he experiments with in Micmacs works marvelously to lighten the political mood of the storyline. However, this experiment is not without its faults and as a result, the innocent charm of Jeunet’s earlier work in Amelie and A Very Long Engagement is sadly missing in Micmacs.
The film opens with the death of Bazil’s father who failed to disable a Moroccan landmine before it exploded. The scenes move quickly from his death, to Bazil and his mother being told of the tragic news, to the funeral with great visual expression to render dialogue unnecessary. The audience is then invited into the life of an older Bazil, played to perfection by Dany Boon, who is working late at night in a video store. In a surreal change of events, he is shot in the head by a stray gun that has hit the ground from a car and motorcycle chase. The creativity in this spectacular scene is followed by black and white credits reminiscent of the golden age of Hollywood. While François Ozon’s satirical film Angel had a contrived throwback to opening credits, Jeunet embraces it and does it justice. The audience brimming with excitement is given time to reflect on this film that has just had the protagonist shot in the head within the first ten minutes.
We are brought back into the action with the miraculous survival of Bazil who must henceforth live with a bullet lodged in his head. He loses his job and flat through the accident but upon discovering the name of the manufacturers that made the bullet and the mine that killed his father, Bazil begins a personal vendetta that paves the way for the rest of the film.
Bazil adopts a surrogate family of social outcasts who scavenge junk from the city and invent mechanical marvels that help them survive virtually penniless. The head of the family, Mama Chow (Yolande Moreau) is wonderfully edgy. The other members include guillotine survivor Slammer (Jean-Pierre Marielle), pretty and intelligent Calculator (Marie-Julie Baup), the aspiring world record holder Buster (Dominque Pinon), clever inventor Tiny Pete (Michel Cremades), ethnographer Remington (Omar Sy) and one of Jeunet’s greatest character inventions the trippy contortionist Elastic Girl (Julie Ferrier). This quirky family of misfits help Bazil take down the two weapon manufacturers by turning them against each other.
Jeunet’s signature montages are shorter than usual but still cleverly used throughout the film to remind the audience of clues that Bazil has collected in his quest to turn the two head manufacturers against each other. Bazil’s ‘mind exercises’ also provide a side show of entertainment in moments where action is minimal.
Dany Boon’s comedic performance throughout the entire film is so wonderfully rendered in his facial expressions that Jeunet’s minimal dialogue acts as a gift to the script. Boon wholly embraces Bazil from his moments of endearing sadness to the triumphant hilarity that echoes the style of Charlie Chaplin.
Visually remarkable with a range of stellar performances, the problem with Micmacs lies entirely within the script. There is a weakness in the connection between Jeunet’s comedy and the serious remarks that Micmacs makes on the politics of companies that make the weapons that armies use. The progression of Bazil’s vindication starts to lose interest midway through the film and the magical element that it began with fades away until the audience is just waiting for the next laugh. The finale, however, pulls it back together so that when the credits start to roll again, we leave the cinema contently with a smile on our faces.
Micmacs may not be Jeunet’s best film, but what is not his best still surpasses, in quality and originality, what top box office earning filmmakers never achieve in their career.
8 out of 10
Micmacs will have a limited release on May 28th.
Will you be seeing Micmacs?