Verdict
Summary
From the oddball French filmmakers Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, who made the strange and futuristic fantasy film The City of Lost Children next. While Delicatessen is not for everyone’s tastes, it will surely immerse you in a time and place that is unfamiliar to most viewers. It’s a classic in its own right.
Plot:
In post-apocalyptic France, a delicatessen that serves mystery meat thrives in the ruins.
The weirdness of this movie is infectious. It’s as if a circus sets up camp at the end of the world and tries to make you smile. The story is set in a post-nuke (educated guess) France, where nothing grows anymore and where meat is scarce. The cities are toppled and the skies are murky and blackish. A former clown answers an ad in the paper and winds up in an outskirt town where the only thing left standing is a dilapidated apartment building with a delicatessen on the first floor. The job: handyman. He gets to work, but something’s way off-kilter, and it isn’t but a few days later when the butcher downstairs is out to cleave him and serve him up to the hungry tenants in the building. The butcher’s nerdy daughter falls in love with the clown (she falls in love with all of the guys who answer the ad), and she tries to warn him what’s in store for him if he doesn’t wise up, but he’s so sweet and innocent that he is almost immune to bodily harm and tragedy despite the fact that his sidekick chimpanzee was eaten by a hungry mob. The butcher’s daughter seeks help from The Troglos, an underground resistance force (mostly a bumbling comedy troupe) to help save her and the clown from her murderous father. The end result is sort of hilarious and should provide a refreshing alternative from the typical post-apocalyptic films that share almost nothing in common with this true original.
From the oddball French filmmakers Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, who made the strange and futuristic fantasy film The City of Lost Children next. While Delicatessen is not for everyone’s tastes, it will surely immerse you in a time and place that is unfamiliar to most viewers. It’s a classic in its own right. The music by Carlos D’Alessio is sort of enchanting too.
Previously available on DVD from Miramax, Delicatessen is now available from Severin in a gorgeous new 4K restoration that defines every nook and cranny your eyes can feast on. It comes with an audio commentary by Jeunet, interview with both co-directors, a making-of features, and an interview with Terry Gilliam about his appreciation for the film. There are two discs: One is the Ultra HD 4K disc, and the other is the standard Blu-ray.
