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Movies You Should Know About : Delicatessen
Although there’s no doubt that I love American Horror, every once in a while I get a craving that only my beloved sub-genre ‘Foreign Horror’ can satisfy. Upon my most recent stray from the comforts of American Horror’s cheap thrills and obvious CGI, I came across this lovely little dark comedy of the French origin entitled ‘Delicatessen’.
Length: 99 minutes
Category: Foreign Horror/ Dark Comedy
Release Date: April 17th, 1991
Country: France
Language French (available with English subtitles)
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Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (‘Alien: Resurrection’ and ‘Amélie’) and Marc Caro, ‘Delicatessen’ is set during an alternate version of the 1950’s after a mysterious catastrophic event has taken place. This mystery event is never revealed however the aftermath has left the surroundings desolate and bathed in a mustard colored fog. Hidden within this fog is a rundown apartment complex and delicatessen ran by butcher and landlord Clapet (Jean-Claude Dreyfus). Seeing as how these desperate times have left the city short on food (including meat), Clapet turns to a less conventional form of protein of which he obtains via a phony ‘Help Wanted’ ad he runs in a newspaper appropriately called ‘Hard Times’. Eventually Clapet’s ad is once again answered; this time by Louison (Dominique Pinon), a former clown whose light hearted mannerism catches the attention of many of the tenants, including Clapet’s daughter Julia (Marie-Laure Dougnac). Having developed feelings for the new handy man, Julia sets out on a mission to prevent Louison’s looming fate held in the hands of her power hungry father. What follows is a film packed with colorful characters, morbid humor, an awkward love story and even a rebellious underground society of vegetarians.
However, if the idea of cannibalism makes you a bit queasy in the stomach (and even I can’t blame you there), you might be happy to know that despite the violent subject matter ‘’Delicatessen’ is surprisingly light on the gore. In fact there’s very little blood at all since most of the human butchery is simply implied and not graphically splattered on the screen. And as far as the actual cannibalism goes, the cuts of meat casted to play ‘human remains’ is a simple cut of beef so don’t expect scenes of raging psychotics chowing down on a severed arms, this is France after all. Ultimately, if you’re looking for a night of bloody satisfaction… you’re probably going to want to look elsewhere. However if you’re looking for a night of guilty laughter inspired by disturbing yet quirky comedy than you just might enjoy what this little ‘Delicatessen’ has to offer.
1 Comment
i liked it, you should really write reviews for movies