Cast: Dany Boon, Andre Dussollier, Nicholas Marie
Director: Jean Pierre Jeunet
Release Date: December 14, 2010
MPAA Rating: R

I had no idea what micmacs was and hadn’t even heard anyone say anything about the movie. When I looked up the title on the IMDB website, there on the cover was a middle-aged man who looked a bit dumbfounded, wearing suspender pants and a long-sleeved wool sweater. So I was completely lost as to why this would be a suggestion for us to write a review. So I started looking at the page more closely to find out that the movie was directed by Jean Pierre Jeunet. He is a wonderful self-taught director who has done a lot of film work abroad. He has an interesting way of visualizing how a movie should look, shows off different camera angles, has good character development, and overall tells a lovely story.

micmacs It begins with a boy, Bazil, whose father has just been killed by a land mine in Morocco. On the day of his funeral, a messenger returns the father’s belongings to the family. The young man discovers a collection of photographs in a box taken after the incident. Upon closer investigation, he discovers that the manufacturer of the land mines is La Vigilante De L’armes. Her mother, dealing with her grievance, sends her son to a Catholic boarding school. Bazil cannot bear the harsh treatment inflicted by the nuns and runs away.

We meet him again 30 years later and he has become a video rental employee at Matador Video. We find him relaxing at work one night watching an old Bacall and Bogart movie, lip-syncing lines from the film. The movie has finished and now his attention is focused on the sound of gunshots outside. Someone in a black car is dueling with a person on a motorcycle. A bullet flies through the air, hitting the front glass window of the video store and flying past Bazil. Then suddenly the car crashes, the driver falls off and fires one last shot at the motorcyclist. The motorcyclist slips on the wet pavement and loses his grip on the gun. The gun rises and hits the ground just in time for it to fire again. The bullet has found a new home, right in Bazil’s forehead. The doctors at the hospital contemplate whether he remove the bullet because if they do he could turn into a vegetable. If they don’t, he could die at any moment. They flip a coin and the decision is to leave it in. “It’ll freak out airport security.”

After being released from the hospital, Bazil returns home only to find that the landlord has changed the locks and his possessions are gone. He still has his job, so it’s not all hopeless. When he arrives at work, he discovers that he has been replaced by an attractive young girl. As he leaves, she runs up to him and hands him the casing from one of the bullets that had been fired the night of the accident. She kindly takes it and looks at it to see the name Les Arsenaux D’Aubervilliers printed on it. She puts it in her pocket and decides to find a place to sleep for the night. Now homeless, jobless, and familyless, he takes refuge on the streets. His only form of income is the coins that passers-by throw into his hat while he pantomime in the square.

One day, while performing, a homeless man calls out to him. The man introduces himself as Slammer, due to his time in jail, and that he might know of a family that would be willing to adopt Bazil. Intrigued, he follows Slammer to a junkyard and enters a house built out of all manner of junk. Inside the cavernous mound he is greeted by several other residents. There’s Tiny Pete, a master mechanic, Calculator, who can see exact measurements with ease, Remington, an ethnographer, Buster, a human cannonball on a mission to return to the Guinness Book of World Records, Mama Chow, a maternal type, and the contortionist. He is welcome to the family.

After salvaging interesting junk, Bazil returns home on his three-wheeler. Some things fall while he is driving and he stops to retrieve them. Bending down, he sees in the reflection of a puddle a familiar image. It is the office of La Vigilante De L’Armement and across the street is the office of Les Arsenaux D’Aubervilliers. A little surprised that the two companies that have caused the most turmoil in his life are right next to him. He decides to enter La Vigilante to talk to the president about the bullet that now resides in his head. The president Mr. De Fenouillet wants nothing to do with him. After being kicked out, Bazil crashes a party for the boss at Les Arsenaux. Mr. Francois Marconi is giving a speech about how happy he is that the company is doing so well and how he has no regrets. At that time, Bazil plans to take revenge on these two men and his company with the help of his new family.

Jean Pierre Jeunet has directed films such as City of Lost Children, Delicatessen, amélie, A very long engagement and a few others. He has the most interesting way of presenting a movie and the cinematography is so unique. The colors have that muted force like the intensity of when it’s about to rain and the sky turns a purplish gray that makes the leaves on the trees look a more vibrant green. Jeunet films are always a delight to watch and Dominique Pinon is nice to meet. It’s in every one of the Jeunet movies. It’s like Where’s Waldo, but you’re looking for this short, stocky man with a big wrinkled smile. I really enjoyed Micmacs and would be open to watching it again, but the story wasn’t very memorable. Interesting, but not necessarily memorable.