Jean-Pierre Jeunet builds elaborate fantasy worlds around vulnerable outsiders. We like him most when the visual invention serves someone worth caring about; his fondness for eccentrics can become a nuisance, but the precise comedy and unexpected warmth deserve our affection.
Fi1m perspective
Above the butcher’s shop in Delicatessen (1991), an ex-clown takes a job and falls for the butcher’s daughter. Jean-Pierre Jeunet and co-director Marc Caro make cannibalism part of daily life without asking us to regard everybody in the building as equally unpleasant. We laughed at Louison’s physical comedy because Dominique Pinon keeps him sweet amid so much organised nastiness. The slapstick is exact, and the affection matters: there would be little pleasure in watching these people if they were all merely grotesque.
The trouble comes with the supporting residents, some of whom have an eccentricity where a personality ought to be. Jeunet, Caro and fellow screenwriter Gilles Adrien sometimes seem too pleased with these peculiarities to notice how little they tell us about the people. The romance then has to compete with characters whose odd habits are their principal contribution. We would happily lose a few of those flourishes for more time with Louison and Julie. Such elaborate sets and exaggerated colours need characters who can hold our attention without them.
Caro, whose work also includes design, co-directed the first two features, Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children (1995). After the Hollywood detour of Alien Resurrection (1997), Jeunet returned to France for the lighter Amélie (2001). Audrey Tautou became another important acting collaborator, alongside the recurring Pinon. A Very Long Engagement (2004) brought romance, war and fantasy together, rather than abandoning his taste for the unreal. The turn towards a more positive tone makes sense beside the kindness already present in Louison.
His worlds do not need to look like ordinary life to make us care about their inhabitants. Pinon supplies that connection without having to make the clown any less peculiar. That is a better defence of Jeunet’s elaborate filmmaking than counting the details in his sets. Start with Delicatessen for Pinon, and allow for some tiresome neighbours.
Biography
Jean-Pierre Jeunet is a French film director and screenwriter. He was born on 3 September 1953 in Roanne, Loire, France. He bought his first camera at the age of 17 and made short films while studying animation. He met designer and comic-book artist Marc Caro at an animation festival in Annecy in the 1970s; the two became frequent collaborators.
Jeunet and Caro directed award-winning short animations and their first live-action short, The Bunker of the Last Gunshots (1981). Jeunet also directed advertisements and music videos. Their first feature film was the black comedy Delicatessen (1991), which Jeunet directed and co-wrote with Caro and Gilles Adrien. It won four César Awards, including for best debut and best original screenplay.
Jeunet and Caro next co-directed The City of Lost Children (1995). Jeunet went on to direct Alien Resurrection (1997), Amélie (2001), A Very Long Engagement (2004), Micmacs (2009) and The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet (2013).
