Review of Micmacs (2009) by Kenneth L — 14 Jan 2011

This movie is just so much fun to watch, it's ridiculous. The full French title apparently translates to "non-stop shenanigans," which is a pretty good description for what goes on in the movie. I don't think I've ever seen a live-action movie with quite so much in common with Looney Tunes; I mean that as a compliment.

The story deals with an ordinary guy named Bazil who one day accidentally gets shot in the head, survives, is taken in by a group of misfits who would make a great circus but live in a junkyard, and decides to seek revenge on the arms company that made the bullet. The movie follows Bazil and his friends as they carry out a number of immensely improbable schemes. The plot races along a bit too fast, and often seems to be leaving out little details; it's like a kid telling a story and getting so excited that he gets ahead of himself and skips parts of the story. But that's ok, because each individual scene is just such a joy to watch.

This movie gives us a human cannonball, a contortionist who can fit inside a suitcase, a doddering old man who builds automatons out of pots and pans, and several other colorful, memorable characters. Danny Boon is fine as Bazil, and Dominique Pinon is particularly good as the human cannonball. Pretty much everyone is acting in a cartoonish register, but it fits the tone of the film just fine.

The real star here is director Jean-Pierre Jeunet's visual style, which is just so much more interesting than what you find in the average movie. As in Amelie and A Very Long Engagement, he goes for a very strong color palette of greens and earthy oranges. The photography is quite sharp. The camera goes anywhere and everywhere, split-screens and fade-ins and filter effects and bits of animation are employed freely. Jeunet is often compared to Terry Gilliam, and appropriately so. They both manage to create films that in their very look and feel capture a strong feeling of whimsy. The story may get a bit muddled, and it's all quite silly and implausible, but not many movies are as immediately fun to watch as Micmacs.