Delicatessen

How to describe Delicatessen? The first film from one-time animator Jean-Pierre Jeunet (later of Amelie fame), made in collaboration with Marc Caro, it’s a dystopian romantic comedy involving cannibalism, and an allegory for France under German occupation. But what that description fails to convey is the film’s charm and invention. There is something of Jacques Tati’s slapstick comedy to it, mixed with Tex Avery’s madcap Looney Tunes mayhem. The sheer chutzpah carries us along on a wave of elation.

Unemployed circus clown Louison (Dominique Pinon) applies for a job as a handyman at an apartment building in post-apocalyptic France, unaware that the ad is meant to lure people to slaughter. The butcher/landlord Clapet (Jean-Claude Dreyfus) provides human meat for his tenants. When Louison and Julie (Maire-Laure Dougnac), the butcher’s daughter, fall in love, it takes all their wits to escape the knife.

With its molelike inhabitants, its sprawling war between flesh-eaters and lentil-men, its achingly sweet love story and surrealist blend of dusty antiquities and 21st-century gizmos, Delicatessen is indescribably wild.

Steven Rea, Philadelpha Inquirer

A hugely enjoyable film.

Matt Ford, BBC.com

A fair bet for cultdom, a lot more likeable than its subject matter suggests, and simply essential viewing for vegetarians.

Jack Yeovil, Empire magazine

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