MicMacs

Last week I saw MicMacs. First, watch the trailer.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYVGkjgNEU8]

Finished? Good.

It was easily one of the most charming films I’ve ever seen. Jean-Pierre Jeunet directed, among other films, Amelie, but I felt this was more fun, more visually impressive, and Dany Boon played a truly engaging lead. As the trailer points out, it’s all about a revenge on the arms manufacturers who killed Bazil’s father (with a land mine) and made the bullet that entered his head. (It is the theme of the orphan versus the giant evil monster corporation.) As a result of his injury, Bazil loses his job and ends up homeless. It is there, on the streets, where he is taken in by the MicMacs – the rest of the cast – who are made up of a contortionist, human cannonball, a strange contraption maker, and so on, and they were as eccentric as you could hope for. The despicableness of the two arms manufacturers are also acted out in that marvellous comic villain style.

Great performances all round, self-referential moments (a poster for MicMacs within the same film), circus-style tomfoolery and beautifully choreographed set-pieces ensue. I challenge anyone not to walk out of the cinema with a very European smile.