THE HYPERACTIVE
WORLD OF
JEUNET
& CARO
Foutaises
Delicatessen City of Lost Children
Alien Resurrection Videos
Cannibal butchers! Terrorist
vegetarians! Noisy sex! Steampunk poison laden fleas! Clones, drones and
cyclops religious groups! Welcome to the strange and hyperactive world
of Jeunet & Caro.
With only two features
to their name Jeunet and Caro have risen from the live fast, die young
world of the pop video to, in the case of Jeunet, the heady heights of
the Hollywood big budget feature. Despite appearing to emerge at the tail
end of the French 80's nouvelle vogue (sic) their partnership began with
the 1981 short Le Bunker de la Dernière Rafale, continuing
sporadically to their feature film debut Delicatessen (1991). The unique
visual style and the hyperbolic relational elements that characterise their
work is reflected in both this period of pop videos/commercials and in
Caro's Metal Hurlent (Europe's premiere science fiction comic)
inspired style.
Foutaises
(1990) won a Cesar for best short. Shot in black and white it is the filmic
equivalent of the McLaren/Westwood tee-shirt (1976) in it's lists of hates
and likes, ranging from the personal to the hip, the surreal to the ordinary.
Reminiscent of Jane Campion's Passionless Moments (1984) it delivers an
eclectic and personal view of various (absurd) situations, into which the
audience can delight in recognition and association. Visually slick
it harks back to Lynch's Eraserhead (1976) with a vacuous post-modern sheen
- the spirit of 1976 given a 90's polish. Star of the show is the remarkable
Dominique Pinon who's elastic features enhance the hyper-reality of both
this and their two feature films.
Delicatessen
(1991) was financed on the success of Foutaises by long time collaborator
and 
Betty
Blue producer Claudie Ossard. The budget was twenty million francs, quite
a high gamble for a debut. The money was well spent, you can see every
centime on the screen. The plot: a house with a menagerie of tenants and
a deli below. A butcher with a beautiful but myopic cello playing daughter.
Meat is on everyone's mind and it's these tenants that may supply it, as
dinner. Grain is the currency. Everyone is out to survive the best way
that they can. Send in the clown, Louison (Dominique Pinon), looking for
a room in exchange for handyman work. It soon becomes very clear that he
will be next on the menu if he doesn't stay ahead of the game. Fear not
for the Troglodistes, an army of underground terrorist vegetarians, are
on hand to save the day. Maybe. 
The plot is superfluous
to the relentless tide of set pieces. The films world-wide success is perhaps
accountable to it's trailer which consists of one of the set-pieces
in its entirety; it is also devoid of both subtitles and dialogue so your
average cinema goer is not marginalised, until they've parted with their
hard earned cash that is. It comprises the now famous bonking scene,
where the creaking springs of the bed dictate the pace at which the entire
household carries out its daily business and results in a truly catastrophic
climax!
Jeunet and Caro enjoy
exploring consequences, and mathematicians studying Chaos Theory could
have endless fun investigating the probabilities of the various events
occurring. The repercussions that result from a ball of string falling
down the stairs have to be seen to be believed. There are also the
Heath Robinson style devices which Amore, a particularly paranoid tenant,
devises to bring about her suicide, which fail hopelessly at the very last
moment.
Whilst the context
of the film appears post-apocalyptic it could easily be placed in the rationed
environment of post-war France. In this scenario modern ideals of everyone
out for themselves meet a restrictive, old fashioned, yet community based
society. The only time this oppressive, fog and grime ridden world is ejected
is in the final shot, with our hero and heroine playing their respective
instruments (her a cello , he his trusty saw) in the oil painting intensity
daylight on the rooftop. It's almost heaven, and perhaps it is.
Visually the film
is a masterpiece; the camera swirls and glides effortlessly yet the overall
look is that of the 1940's French films it often alludes to. Carné,
Renoir and Ophuls are clearly the inspiration behind Khondji's breathtaking
cinematography. Ironically a great deal of this classical style visualisation
was achieved using post-production video enhancement but hey, that's post-modernism
for you. Khondji (who's photography on Se7en saved the Dr Phibes
meets Silence of the Lambs plot) uses a high contrast almost sepia
toned lighting to further heighten the sense of otherworldliness.
Delicatessen's main
trump card is it's attitude towards the Hollywood style of film.
It tackles it technically head on and matches it in both proficiency and
seamlessness of effects. Yet, despite all this, it is resolutely French
in both it's outlook and portrayal. Food is the driving currency and concern,
unlike the Australian Hollywood Mad Max's need for petrol. This emphasises
the basic human needs; food sustaining life and petrol sustaining action
packed car chases! Let's face it, food is far more sophisticated and civilised
anyway. The hero is a catalyst for the films events and not the motivation
for them. The peripheral characters are given equal space in the film.
The sex, however seedy, is not shot with gallons of baby oil and the accompanying
soundtrack consists of springs, dusters, a cello, a paint roller and the
testing of 'sheep in a tin' as opposed to a heavy metal or sax score. Most
of the cast are grubby in apparel, many of them would find casting in America
very difficult outside of a David Lynch film. Even the titles dispose of
the Letraset and go instead for a more contextual Peter Greenaway look.
The film's success
is measured in the careers of all concerned. Khondji is one of the most
sought after cinematographers in the USA, the effects crew were snapped
up by Pedro Almodovar to work on Alex de la Iglesia's Accion Mutante (1992),
which features a similarly rickshod group of misfit terrorists and
everyone was reunited to make the most expensive film in French cinema
at that time... The City of Lost Children (La Cité
des Enfants Perdus) (1995).
A young child sits
in his cot in a room that is cheerily decorated. It is Christmas Eve. A
tin clockwork soldier marches and clatters his cymbals making a gentle
tinkling sound. The room glows with a soft, warm, homely light and peace
is all around. A rope drops down from within the chimney and a pair of
familiar looking black boots appear. It's Santa! He climbs down through
the fireplace, carefully brushes the soot from his fluffy red coat and
offers the child a wonderful toy. The soldier is still marching and the
cymbals still tinkle. Then another pair of boots appear from within the
chimney. And another. The room is soon full of smiling Santas. The childs
expression changes from one of joy to fear. As the Santa's begin to melt
and warp, the child begins to wail...
Far away out to sea
on an oil rig platform surrounded by giant mines, the evil Krank arranges
for the kidnapping of young children from the nearest port so that he can
steal their dreams. It is the mission of circus strongman, One, with the
aid of the streetwise orphan Miette, to find and rescue One's little brother.
Set in a world far
removed from anything we could conceive, The City of Lost Children is a
fairy tale for the 90's. It is at once sinister and beautiful, funny and
frightening, antiquated and futuristic. The diegesis is completely self-contained
in that the film is not set in the past, present or future, and does not
present an alternative history or a post apocalyptic environment. This
is a world of dreams and nightmares and there is no other context upon
which to base this reality.
The city is a port,
with a filthy harbour. The streets are narrow and dingy and set on
many levels, reminiscent of Victorian London. The residents are either
corrupt or living in fear. Yet the technology is remarkable. The Cyclops,
a religious group who kidnap the children on Kranks behalf, rely upon video
implants direct to the optical nerve via a beautiful antique brass contraption.
In one instance a deranged cyclops, infected by a trained flea to become
homicidal, plugs his implant into the cyclops' victim in order that the
victim may witness his own death, a cyberpunk updating of Powells Peeping
Tom.
Once again in-depth
characterisation is lacking, but there are a plethora of subsidiary eccentrics,
weirdoes and freaks who contribute to the narrative. There are the evil
conjoined twins, known as the Octopus, who force the city orphans to steal
for them, the clones (all played by Dominique Pinon sometimes six in the
scene at once) who hare about maniacally serving their master Krank to
the best of their ability, the mysterious amnesiac diver and the ex-circus
owner who has the best trained fleas in the land. Add a sympathetic whore,
a brain with an argumentative manner that is prone to migraine, defiant
henchmen and a dog cruelly kept in line by having his lead attached,
via pulleys, to a basket of sausages that rise tantalisingly out of sight
upon every approach, and you have less a list of characters and more of
a circus. 
Set pieces abound,
again applying chaotic principle to absurd conclusion. In one truly jaw
dropping sequence a single tear leads to the crash of a major ocean bound
liner in a roller-coaster ride of implausible cause and effect. Others
include the journeys of the aforementioned fleas, some dizzying green gas
and the final rescue attempt. Clearly the result of extensive storyboarding
(apparently the film had been gestating for almost 14 years before realisation)
the marrying of conventional camerawork and computer generated effects
has reached it's pinnacle so far.
Inevitably the film
begs to be compared to Gilliams fantasy trilogy (Time Bandits, Brazil and
The Adventures of Baron Munchaussen) in both look and feel. Many of the
shots appear straight out of Brazil, and it's blurring of dream and reality
head in that direction. It fails to live up to these aims for a number
of reasons; firstly there is the lack of character depth, then there
is the lack of literary depth that imbues Gilliams oeuvre and, most importantly,
it replaces paranoia and impotence with Sadean cruelty. In Delicatessen
the characters have a Chuck Jones style of violence associated with them,
here the tone is altogether more unwholesome. The film delights in the
torture of everyone involved, good, evil or indifferent - Miette is enslaved,
forced into crime, bound, drowned, brutally beaten by her only friend (under
the influence of poison), subjected to a multitude of mental tortures and
exposed to unsavoury sexual behaviour. In this respect the film is Grimm
in the strictest sense of the word and one of only a handful of films that
is (Company of Wolves and The Magic Toyshop being the only others that
spring to mind). Ultimately though, the fantasy context nullifies any perspective
that would normally be considered unacceptable and the resolution justifies
the means, as all good fairytales do.
Visually we have to
thank not only cinematographer Khondji and Caro himself but also the talents
of fashion fave Jean-Paul Gaultier (he of Eurotrash fame and also costume
designer for Greenaway's The Cook, The Thief His Wife and Her Lover and
Almodovar's Kika) and the work of the two effects groups used on the film.
Indeed the effects remit was monumental, Pitof/Dudoi had to provide 144
shots of digitally manipulated imagery including the multiple Clones, the
giddy organic backdrops and the cyclops viewfinders; Buf Compagnie provided
some 48 shots of computer generated material including a flea so realistic
it has you scratching. As a result of these efforts they are to be responsible
for the visual effects of Jeunet's forthcoming movie Alien Resurrection,
one of the summers big Hollywood blockbusters.
So, what
of the future? Alien 4 (aka 'Alien Resurrection'
[more]) as a concept seems like a monumentally bad idea, especially
if it involves the resurrection of Sigourney Weaver. With Jeunet at the
helm and his "dream team" of effects technicians however, we may have a
more unusual and interesting film than previous expectations led us to
believe. Perhaps what is really in order though is another high budget
French film, without the artistic constraints of commercial Hollywood cinema
but with the bizarre perspective of two European artists
Videos:
Delicatessen is available
on Electric Video. If you are lucky you may still be able to pick up the
box set that includes Foutaises , a little booklet and a rather groovy
pig badge.
The City of Lost Children
is available on Lumiere Video. DO NOT rent this from your local video store
as it's both "pan 'n' scanned" and dubbed, besides which you'll probably
want to watch it more than once!
Reference:
This
Link - is a couple of years old but really the only useful (English)
Jeunet & Caro site.
If you like these why not
try:
Accion Mutante (1992) Alex
de la Iglesia
Eraserhead (1976) David
Lynch
The Tenant (1976) Roman
Polanski
Brazil (1985) Terry Gilliam
Kafka (1991) Steven Soderbergh
Street of Crocodiles (1986)
& The Unnameable Little Broom(1985) The Brothers Quay
Anything by Jan Svankmajer
(Czech surrealist animator)
