Delicatessen

IN A SUBURBAN ABANDONED LOT there is an old house inhabited by people with the most remarkable customs. First and foremost it's the family Tapioca; then Mr and Mrs Interligator, a couple of hopeless snobs; the brothers Kube, dedicating their days to manufacturing small boxes that make a moo-sound when you turn them upside down; Ms Plusse, a dubious lady and Mr Potin, who has locked himself in together with his frogs and snails. Their common interest is eating. All are customers at the butcher's on the street-level. Beneath them, in the sewers, the ''troglodists'' live - rebellious vegetarians. The butcher's daughter Julie is not to be forgotten, she's a celloplaying Snow White among ravenous ghouls, made for the promising troubadour Louison who appears one day. Will heavenly music begin?

Comment:
IMAGINE PETER GREENAWAY'S CANNIBALISM and still lifes of disintegrating leaves, reptiles and insects, Terry Gilliam's retro-futuristic pipe-systems, and Marcel Carne's deserted highrisers. All in one film. That is Delicatessen.
The house stands in the middle of the universe, after the apocalypse, and is frequented by a strange group of survivors. All of them circle around a crude butcher who supplies the inhabitants with fillets and sausages made from superfluous tenants. The butchery and the cannibalism are part of the last phase of the collapse of civilization.
The characters are burlesque. Most often shot through a wide angle lens, which make them appear like swollen caricatures, and most remarkable looks the skin hero Dominique Pinon. Like a Popeye who has exchanged his spinach for poisonous mushrooms. Do you remember Pinon in Diva, by the way, where he played a stilettoslicing rascal and began all his short lines with ''I don't like ... ''?
Keep your eyes open for the hair-rising sex scene which probably will become legendary. It's a hysterical montage where a variety of squeaky activities in the not so soundproof house are juxtaposed with the butcher getting his mistress laid in a vehemently creaky bed. Shot from underneath, sort of.
HANS WIKLUND

Medverkande
Marie-Laire Dougnac, Dominique Pinon: Producent
Claudie Ossard: Manus
Jean-Pierre Jeunet: Foto
Darius Khondji: Musik
Carlos D_Alessio: Talat språk
French