Micmacs (2009)

Micmacs is a film from Jean-Pierre Jeunet, the director who will probably always be associated with Amelie, but who has actually made some wonderful other films, a Very Long Engagement was the first of his other films I saw, and it showed a great diversity in the types of fims he could make. Micmacs goes backwards slightly in so much as that it is about an unusual rag tag group of people much as Amelie was. However, the story couldn't be more different. Dany Boon plays a man called Bazil, who gets shot in the head, survives, and due to a flip of a coin, has the bullet left in his head as the doctor decides that it is better to let him live with the chance of death, than leaving him braindead but with a long life. As he is in hospital Basil ends up losing his job and ends up living in a junkyard with a bunch of other people from various walks of life.

Basil manages to track down the company that made the bullet that is lodged into his brain, as well as the company who produced the land mine that killed his father, and decides to play the two companies off one another and destroy them for their crimes. I wasn't entirely sure how I would enjoy how the film played out when I was presented with this premise, whilst I agree with the sentiment, I am always wary of films that have a 'message' if you like, not least due to the film Crash (the one that won the Oscars) which I thought simply rammed its message down the audiences throats so badly that it made me want to gag. What joy it was then seeing that this film dealt with the issue of warmongers and arms dealers with intelligence and humour, keeping the preaching of its message down to a minimum.

The characters that Basil ends up living with are an eccentric bunch, you've got a contortionist, a mechanical engineer, a woman who can do complicated calculations in her head in seconds, the matriarch of the group and numerous other unusual people, these add a slightly surreal edge to the film. I think one of the reasons I enjoyed this film so much was because it was detached from reality whilst somehow remaining grounded, never being eccentric for eccentricities sake. Micmacs was a film I remember not getting amazing write ups, and with a name that I don't think is particularly intriguing or well... good... I put off watching this for ages until one day it turned up in the post and my hand was kind of forced. Whilst I am glad to have seen this film,  and whilst I believe that it contains some great charms, I also feel as though it is a film that I won't return to very often, it's very enjoyable, but it lacks the longevity of some of Jeunet's other films such as Amelie, Delicatessen or a Very Long Engagement. One thing's for sure though, it's bucket loads better than Alien Resurrection  and that is something to be thankful for that's for sure.