FILM TITLE: DELICATESSEN DIRECTOR: CLAUDIE OSSARD COUNTRY: ITALY/FRANCE 1992 CINEMATOGRAPHY:DANIUS KHONDJI MUSIC: CARLOS D'ALESSIO SUPER FEATURES: Weird, black comedy. Along the lines of Terry Gilliam's BRAZIL, but with world war depression written all over it.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Some films are difficult to discuss. Either they are serious stuff that is trying to make a point, or they are stuff that is just making fun of people, and their ways.
DELICATESSEN is one of those films. Amidst a totally surrealistic atmosphere, that includes some mime work, and many dreams, this film plods along until it finally finds a reasonable 'peace' in the end, by making sure that all the characters that live in fear, and are involved in the making of the ugly scares, are either gone, or have gotten their come uppance. In between a surrealistic group, that looks like the same group that was the revolutionary statement in the film BRAZIL, is engaged to get some of this work done, but never does, and may even be at the wrong address.
After the war, this family, living in one house is full of people and relatives that do not have a job. A butcher is the leader of the house, and one day hires a young man who has pledged to do a good job. And amidst the usual odd events is the fact that there is a 'butcher' that also scares a few people with his cleavers, and occasionally uses them. The suggestion is, that in the hard times, any mender of the family that is just dead space will be hacked up to provide some money for everyone.
The newly hired young man is a curious sort. He is an ex- circus performer with a very famous name, and the trickery doesn't get him. He returns in kind, and becomes in the process enamored with the butcher's daughter, who also likes him. As soon as the butcher is aware of this, he decides the young man is the next target. But we never really know in whose mind this f ear is living, or if it is real, except that in the end of the film, there are only the two young lovers sharing a roof playing their circus like music in their instruments. A measure of peace has been established in this house, so it seems.
In the middle of it all, it is a surrealistic bunch of segments that just come and go, as the butcher helps us learn who the next victim is, and in the case of the grandmother, she dies of a heart attack, by just 'imagining' the butcher with a clever ready to attack her.
A fun, and weird movie to watch, it is well written, and filmed with your confusion in mind, which makes it fun to follow. Every so often there is a new wrench in the works, and you go ... what..?? is going on..?
FUN MOVIE. WEIRD. HAS SOME BLACK HUMOUR. Copyright (c) Pedro Sena 1994 Pedro Sena, Reviewer and Moderator of the CENTIPEDE's THE FILM.
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