Film review: Micmacs

Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
With: Dany Boon and André Dussollier
On general release

Jean-Pierre Jeunet's best-known film, Amelie, was a tricky one to categorise. The posters had us believe that it was as pink and fluffy as candyfloss, but the film itself was laced with enough dirt and darkness to ensure it never tasted too sugary. Jeunet's new film, Micmacs, is an even more extreme blend of sweet and sour. It's an impish comedy that features land mines and sex shows; an idealistic fairy tale that begins when the hero is shot in the head.

The hero in question is played by Dany Boon. As a child, his life is ruined when a land mine kills his father and then, as an adult, his life is shattered again when a drive-by shooting leaves him with a bullet lodged in his brain (it's typical of Jeunet's sense of humour that the surgeon tosses a coin to decide whether or not to operate).

Boon ends up wandering Paris with no job and no home until—like Snow White meeting the Seven Dwarfs—a community of misfits living in a junkyard adopts him. He then happens upon the headquarters of two rival arms manufacturers. One company built the land mine that killed his father; the other was responsible for the bullet that gave him a permanent headache. And so, together with his oddball new friends, Boon plots a series of surveillance missions and break-ins that will enable him to wreak his revenge on them both.

In essence, Micmacs is a heist movie, and the genre turns out to be a perfect fit for Jeunet's obsessively detailed storytelling. After all, big-screen heists rely on intricate machinations involving off-the-wall ideas and split-second timing-and Jeunet's films operate in much the same way.

There isn't a moment in Micmacs that hasn't been laboured over until it's as creative as possible. The visual gags and Heath Robinson inventions pay homage to Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin while its more recent forebears would be the escapades of Wallace & Gromit, as well as Pixar's cartoons (Jeunet names Toy Story as an inspiration). The end result overflows with more fun and flair than Ocean's Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen put together.

As playful as it is, though, Micmacs never stops spitting satirical bile at the sharp-suited executives who live in luxury while their products kill and maim thousands of people around the world. It's a poignant combination of adult polemic and children's fantasy. The suggestion seems to be that any kind of come-uppance for arms dealers is something that could only happen in a fairy tale.

Nicholas Barber