Delicatessen

Delicatessen (1991)

In a Post-Apocalyptic world where food is used as currency and meat is extremely hard to come by Clapet, a butcher who owns a Delicatessen and apartment building, has come up with a way to keep meat in stock. He hires handymen to work in the apartment building and then after they've done a bit of work around the place he kills them and serves them up to the other tenants of the building who are in on the whole thing. His plans hit a snag however when his daughter, Julie Clapet, falls in love with Louise, an ex-circus performer who is the most recent handyman to be hired. When her father won't listen to her pleads to spare Louise, Julie forms a plan to save the oblivious handyman. She goes into the tunnels under the city to search out a group of misfits called the troglodytes and offers them access to her father’s huge stash of corn and other food, in exchange for their kidnapping Louise and whisking him away to safety. On the night that her plan is to go into effect all hell breaks loose and you never know what's going to happen next.

I was surprised by how much I liked this film. It's all in French with English subtitles, but I'll try not to hold that against it. Really, it adds to the atmosphere of the movie, which is great. They do a good job of creating an interesting setting for the story to take place in and their attention to the little details make for a much better movie. I love all of the different characters that populate the apartment building. Each one is well developed and is dealing with the horrible state of the world in their own way. Two of my favorites are an old guy that lives in a basement room that he keeps flooded with water so that snails and frogs are thriving there. He raises them and eats them and even seems to be becoming like them. Another one is a woman who has gone over the deep end (perhaps with a little help) and is trying to kill herself in very complicated ways that always seem to fail. The acting in this movie is top notch and the story is really well written. There aren't too many gory special effects, but they aren't needed to make this movie a groovy one to watch.

This is a great dark comedy that I would really recommend you check out. It's got a style you don't see often with American movies and is really a nice change of pace. Get it, watch it and enjoy.

3 ½ out of 4

Reviewed by Scott Schwarzwalder