DELICATESSEN

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STARRING: Marie-Laure Dougnac, Dominique Pinon, Karin Viard, Jean Claude Dreyfus, Ticky Holgado, Anne Marie Pisani, Edith Ker, Mickael Todde, Boban Janevski

1991, 95 Minutes, Directed by: Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro

deli.jpg (12892 bytes) Description: A post-apocalyptic scenario set entirely in a dank and gloomy building where the landlord operates a delicatessen on the ground floor. But this is an altogether meatless world, so the butcher-landlord keeps his customers happy by chopping unsuspecting victims into cutlets, and he's sharpening his knife for a new tenant (French comic actor Dominque Pinon) who's got the hots for the butcher's nearsighted daughter! — Amazon.com

Delicatessen is a "Terry Gilliam presents" movie, which only makes sense. This is the type of movie I can imagine the director of Brazil and 12 Monkeys being very jealous of.

This French movie (with subtitles in the American version) is a dark and surreal black comedy. While Delicatessen borrows its visual look mostly from Brazil and is reminiscent of Alien 3, its content is wholly original.

Set in an Eraserhead-like post-apocalyptic future (although everyone wears 1950s clothing - like they did in Blade Runner), Delicatessen focuses on a decrepit block of flats owned by a butcher in which the tenants hire handymen to fix things around the place - and then eat them!

Yup, you read right. This pattern is repeated until the butcher's daughter falls in love with one unsuspecting victim and tries to save him from his, er, unsavoury fate.

Despite dealing with the taboo subject of cannibalism, Delicatessen is surprisingly gore-free and not as gruesome as one might expect. At times, it comes across more as a romantic comedy, albeit a slightly offbeat one. In the end, Delicatessen might not be in everyone's taste (bad pun intended), but if you're into let's say Monty Python comedies or the British comic 2000A.D. then Delicatessen is definitely a movie worth sinking your teeth into (groan!). If you're not, then you risk missing out on a tasty confection (more groan!) . . .

(Incidentally, co-director Jeunet went on to direct the fourth Alien movie, Alien Resurrection - a film which somehow just wasn't as good as his efforts on this movie might suggest.)

Sci-Fi Movie Page Pick: A movie to sink your teeth into! Black-humored surreal French stuff. Yeah, as you might have gathered by now it's made by the same folks who did City of the Lost Children and, well, it's even better!