Delicatessen – Marc Caro/Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Set in an unknown post/apocalyptic era somewhere in France (presumably - they all speak French!), this 1991 film tracks the lives of the butcher Clapet (Jean-Claude Dreyfus), and a bevy of tenants who inhabit the rooms above his delicatessen. Clapet has a daughter, Julie (Marie-Laure Dougnac), who is almost blind and a sensitive cello player type. The tenement is populated by a buxom young woman (Karin Viard) who is Clapet’s mistress, a pair of brothers whose occupation is to make widgets of unknown function out of wood, a thief/peddler, his mother-in-law, wife and their two kids, a man and his suicidal wife, and a creepy sort of basement dweller who breeds aquatic life! Perhaps inspired by Sweeney Todd – the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, the film is a foray into what desperate things human beings will do when their very survival is threatened. An odd-job man, Louison (Dominique Pinon), lands up at the delicatessen in response to an ad in the Hard Times newspaper, and is told by the butcher that he is not “muscular” enough for the job, but is reluctantly given a chance. Food is scarce and a barter system is in force. People pay for their meat with small bags of corn or beans, or in services rendered – often to the sound of creaking bedsprings that inspire a symphonic frenzy of activity in the tenement. (Warning – the following is hilarious but may have some inappropriate content for those not of age).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-pTWCarCwc

The new odd-job man turns out to be a retired circus clown, falls for the daughter, and has no clue what is ultimately in store for him at the delicatessen. In the meantime he takes on many odd jobs, including the one of fixing the ceiling of the tenement, and the wayward spring!

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