shadow grounds

I just finished watching Micmacs, or Micmacs à tire-larigot. It took me like 3 days to finish as I had to go on a meaningless trip with my school this weekend and never had a chance. I posted the soundtrack a little while back (link here), but that's beside the point. This film is just incredible! It was directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, whose previous films (of this style) include La cité des enfants perdus, Delicatessen (both with the art direction of Marc Caro) and Amélie. Already you should realize this a film that stands apart from many others. Jeunet exposes so magnificently both the absurdities and weaknesses of his characters. Each character has a story that follows them through the film (I was pleased to see Dominique Pinon make his appearance once more! he is so great), and they all work together so well with their quirks, uncommon abilities, and fascinating personalities. Among these characters there is the Elastic Girl, a highly flexible woman who can hide in the smallest of spaces, including a fridge and/or briefcase; Remington, a Congolese ethnographer obsessed with idioms; Tiny Pete, a small man who has an uncanny ability to create peculiar machines out of practically anything; and then there's Mama Chow, Slammer, Calculator, Buster, etc. I haven't watched a movie with such great characters in forever. The plot revolves around Bazil(the main character)'s revenge on two powerful companies who both created the mine by which Bazil's father died while attempting to disarm it, and were responsible for the bullet that quite randomly entered Bazil's head. The movie is touching and strong in both characters and absurdist humour. Jeunet's childlike view of an everyday world enchants the viewer and makes Micmacs a very beautiful, fun film. So, the point of this post... you should watch it. I suck at film reviews or whatever, but who doesn't?