On 16 July 2021, after having previously viewed The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec (click here to read my Shuker In MovieLand review of it), I watched on DVD another very unusual but equally delightful English-subtitled French fantasy film. This one was entitled Micmacs (or Micmacs à Tire-Larigot, to give it its full French title).
Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (who also directed The City of Lost Children reviewed by me here), and released by Warner Bros and Sony Pictures Classics in 2009, Micmacs concerns itself with a group of outcasts and social misfits who had bonded together against the world, living as a family inside a somewhat steampunk-designed den deep within a huge Parisian rubbish tip, and gifted with all manner of highly unexpected abilities and/or medical idiosyncrasies. They include a mathematical genius, an immensely-skilled automaton creator, an incredibly supple contortionist, and a record-breaking human cannonball.
Their newest member is a shy man in his early 30s named Bazil (played by Dany Boon), who has recently been rendered homeless after a live bullet became lodged in his forehead just millimetres from his brain and could blow up at any moment. Moreover, Bazil had lost his military father to an exploding landmine when only a young child.
Consequently, after he decides to seek revenge upon the two shady arms-dealers/weapon-manufacturers and their respective companies that he holds responsible for these twin life-changing disasters in his life, his new family all readily agree to help him. There then follows a truly surreal series of intricately-exacted sabotages and subterfuges conducted by Bazil and company to wreak havoc upon their adversaries, culminating in his desired destruction of the dealers' entire lives and businesses.
What makes Micmacs such a quirky movie is that it plays out very much like a screwball live-action version of Wallace and Gromit, with kooky larger-than-life characters possessing bizarre skills beyond anything that one would expect to see in real life, yet without extending into the realms of either the supernatural or super-heroes.
Incidentally: if you're wondering what this movie's unusual title actually means, Micmacs approximates in English to 'Shenanigans', with Micmacs à Tire-Larigot loosely translating as 'Non-Stop Shenanigans' or 'Shenanigans To Your Heart's Content'. Both are certainly very apt descriptions of the film's madcap pace and slapstick antics. So now you know!
Moreover, according to its director, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, his cinematic influences when making Micmacs included Toy Story, the Mission Impossible movies, and Disney's classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. An eclectic ensemble indeed – as eclectic as Micmacs itself, in fact.
A comedy/heist film quite unlike anything that I've seen before, with Boon playing the unequivocally oddball central character Bazil with delightful daffiness (as indeed do all of the other actors and actresses in their respective, equally off-centre roles), Micmacs definitely comes highly recommended for movie aficionados of the weird but also the wonderful.
If you'd like to see for yourself, be sure to click here to view an official Micmacs trailer on YouTube.
To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.
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