Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Micmacs

Revenge is sweet.By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time," "Cinema Classics," and "On the Marquee

For a summer bereft of bright comedy (Exhibit A?Grownups, B?Get Him to the Greek), the French Micmacs is a beacon. The title probably deriving from the Algonquin term for "allies," this farce/caper has a band of scruffy junk yard rebels creating havoc for two arms dealers who may have been responsible for protagonist Bazil (Danny Boon) receiving a stray bullet to the noggin as well as his father bring blown apart by a land mine.

While it is somewhat frou frou, this satire is serious about the specious justifications of arms manufacturers and the frustrations of the families with lost limbs and lives who suffer in quiet the outrageous profit and indifference of those who make the instruments of war. Bazil recruits a ragtag bunch of underground talents including a contortionist, human cannonball, and calculating genius.

Although the revenge is sweet, the over-the-top cuteness could be toned down to participate a little in more subtle circus. No matter, shooting a cannonball human into a dumpster or magnetizing a limo to capture the occupants are just some of the inventive set pieces that combine slapstick and wit to satisfy a France that embraces Jerry Lewis and Marcel Marceau at the same time.

Micmacs could be no more than a farce if director/writer Jean-Pierre Jeunet didn't include a modicum of romance to humanize an otherwise freefall of gags seeming to exist just to show his wit. On a much grander scale, the homage to Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo is felicitous if one considers the ronin manipulating two warring families. The early reference to The Big Sleep with Bogie and Bacall in romance mode helps establish the film's ambition to connect with the best of American romance and pop-cult lore.

But Micmacs can be enjoyed the way The Fantastic Mr. Fox can be?as a cartoon-like riff on the humor of humanity as it struggles with the endless inconsistencies of justice and revenge.

John DeSando teaches film at Franklin University and co-hosts WCBE 90.5's It's Movie Time, Cinema Classics, and On the Marquee, which can be heard streaming at http://publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/ppr/index.shtml and on demand at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/arts.artsmain. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.RR.com