In association with

Delicatessen [1991]
from Momentum Pictures
starring Jean-Claude Dreyfus, Jean-Francois Perrier, Anne Marie Pisan, Rufus, Dominique Pinon
directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro

Features:

• PAL
• Widescreen

Editorial Review:

Delicatessen presents a post-apocalyptic scenario set entirely in a dank and gloomy building where the landlord operates a delicatessen on the ground floor. But this is an altogether meatless world, so the butcher-landlord keeps his customers happy by chopping unsuspecting victims into cutlets, and he's sharpening his knife for the new tenant (French comic actor Dominque Pinon) who's got the hots for the butcher's near-sighted daughter. Delicatessen is a feast (if you will) of hilarious vignettes, slapstick gags, and sweetly eccentric characters, including a man in a swampy room full of frogs, a woman doggedly determined to commit suicide (she never gets it right) and a pair of brothers who make toy sound boxes that "moo" like cows.

It doesn't amount to much as a story, but that hardly matters; this is the kind of comedy that leaps from a unique wellspring of imagination and inspiration, and it's handled with such visual virtuosity that you can't help but be mesmerised. French co-directors of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro have wildly inventive imaginations that gravitate to the darker absurdities of human behaviour, and their visual extravagance is matched by impressive technical skill. There's some priceless comedy here, some of which is so inventive that you may feel the urge to stand up and cheer. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

On the DVD: the special features are pretty standard, with a trailer, "making of" featurette and footage of the rehearsal process. The audio commentary is supplied by Jeunet, which, although interesting, is in French and thus necessitates the use of subtitles which then obliterate the movie's own subtitles. Once the commentary is on it is virtually impossible to turn this option off without reloading the disc. However, the Dolby stereo works wonders for this film, which is rich in sound, and surprisingly the 1.85:1 letterbox ratio is perfect for a film that is grainy by design. --Nikki Disney

French
Region 2
English

After years of working successfully in commercials and music videos, French directors Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet make a splashing feature-film debut, DELICATESSEN, a hysterical exercise in style. Scripted by comic book writer and frequent Caro and Jeunet collaborator Gilles Adrien, the story follows a sweet-natured clown, Louison (Dominique Pinon), who moves into a run down apartment building with a delicatessen on the ground floor and falls in love with the butcher's daughter, Julie Clapet (Marie-Laure Dougnac). When it turns out that Julie's father (Jean-Claude Dreyfus) is actually butchering human beings and selling the meat to the carnivorous tenants of the building, Julie must decide if she will remain loyal to her father's business or expose the truth in order to save Louison from being the next victim. Taking place entirely inside, underneath, and on the roof of the delicatessen, the film uses an old pipe that runs throughout the building as a channel of communication for its characters.
Caro and Jeunet have a flair for visual communication and comedy that overflows in DELICATESSEN, keeping viewers engaged in the film even when the style seems to swallow the plot. In one of the most mimicked scenes of the 1990s (most notably in commercials), the directors brilliantly choreograph a bizarre event in which the separate activities of each of the hotel's tenants--a couple making love in a squeaky bed, a man painting his ceiling, a woman playing the cello--become hilariously rhythmic and synchronised. This scene spawned an entirely new cinematic language, making DELICATESSEN one of the most auspicious directorial debuts of the 1990s.

Customer Reviews:

• Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0

• Quirky, funny, creative and DARK
  When recently asked by colleagues what my favourite film was, I said I couldn't pick one in particular, but a French film called Delicatessen would certainly be in the top five.
  "What's it about?" they asked, as one would expect from a small group, all of whom had yet to see it:
  "In a post-apocalyptic French apartment block in a world in which the resource we call meat is scarce, the Landlord, a butcher whose shop is annexed to the building, serves his clients the meat of tenants that get behind... more info

• oh wow!!!
  what a fab film!!I cant really describe this film, other than it is a clevery woven masterpeice from two brilliant directors whose ideas are totally new and refreshing. A dark and tantalisingly haunting comedy about what happens when people get far too hungry in a world where the only meat available is off the bones of humans...

• A True Feast!
  Clapet (Jean Claude Dreyfuss) owns a butcher shop and the tenements above it. He is looking for a maintenance man and advertises in the Hard Times paper. An unemployed clown (Dominique Pinon) applies for the job, and so sets the scene for the ensuing lunacy.
  As meat is in such short supply, Clapet has an unusual technique of procuring meat for his clientele. Pinon being next for the chopping board. However, this time, his daughter has fallen in love with the 'new boy' and tries to thwart her father's... more info

• "No-one is entirely evil. It's the circumstances. Or we don't know what we're doing."
  Set in a rotting wasteland where food and barter replace money, Dominque Pinon's unemployed clown (a gentle-natured cross between Popeye and Klaus Kinski) takes a job as handyman-cum-dinner in a rundown apartment owned by a butcher who hacks up the hired help to feed his other, not too morally particular residents. Complications ensue when he falls in love with the butcher's daughter and she enlists the aid of an underground group of vegetarian terrorists to help her save him. The butcher himself is... more info

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