Absurdity Rules

Sung to the tune of "Alouette":

I love foreign films
fun subtitled French Films
I love foreign films
une ticket si vous plaiz!

Yep. Can't get enough of the French Cinema. And this, in my epinion, is one of the best on record.

Delicatessen, directed by the french duo Jeunet & Caro (also the brains behind another great flick, City of Lost Children), paints a beautiful picture from start to finish. Every single frame of this movie could be hung on a wall as a work of art. Visually, it is one of the best. A landscape of a dilapidated world, dirty and crumbling, desperate to hold together any semblance of what it used to be.

In this world, you have the Butcher, the seemingly authority figure of the Delicatesseen and the tenants above it. They all share one secret: its method of feeding. The film opens with a fun sequence that shows us its previous victim: a man desperate to escape his fate, and his failure. At the center of the story are the two budding lovers: the butcher's daughter, eager for independence, and the "new help", or, to the tenants, "fresh meat". Don't worry, you'll get it when you see the film.

The film never ceases to please, and never holds back. When the pace slows, so does the constant barrage of depressants. In its place, silly, almost absurd bits of comedy come out of the cruddy woodwork. Jeunet & Caro play the game of walking the tightrope between stretching reality and blowing it away altogether. The great thing is, you don't mind when they do. This movie is a trip into a fantasy world, and it's great to get lost in.

Unfortuneatly, it's a foreign film, meaning it might not be readily available at your local video store. But trust me, it's worth the work of digging a little deeper to find this diamond in the rough.