French-style grotesque surrealism, in a film with style but no content.

I think I got to know Jean-Pierre Jeunet in the same way as almost everyone who doesn't follow French cinema at the same time: through the film “Amelie”. The film brought the director international and is unanimously considered his greatest and most relevant work. Given how much I liked this movie, I decided to see this one, but my experience was different. If “Amelie” was magical and beautiful, this film is much more uninteresting. It was treated like a surreal nightmare: it's a story about a butcher who occasionall... read the rest.

I did really quite enjoy this film, but I'll be honest - half the time I had no idea what was going on! From the start I expected Steven Sondheim's "Mrs. Lovett" to be working on her pies downstairs, beneath the shop of "Clapet" (Jean-Claude Dreyfus). They all live in a France where food is very scarce and people have an habit of disappearing without trace! He also owns a rather dilapidated block of flats next door and he needs a janitor. Enter the poor, unsuspecting, "Louison" (Dominique Pinon) who needs a place to stay. He used to be a clown, but now the joke is very much on him as he meets t... read the rest.