Jun 08, 2015orkluttar rated this title 2.5 out of 5 stars
There seems to be some uncertainty as to when this story would have occurred. But not to a European still digging away the rubble from WW II. These sort of stories are NOT
so untypical for Europe, as there were of course, whole cities reduced to junk after the
zealot bombings. So the clothes, television programs, vehicles and so forth are about early 195O's. Not as indistinct as Jeunet's chronological placement of 'City of the Lost Children.' And obviously, 'Amelie' was supposed to be contemporary.
Ironic that French Guiana still
HAS a cannibal population, but they're sheltered as a, 'National Oddity.' The tenants of Clapet's tenement obviously know that conditions have gotten so terrible for that to be a necessity to survive.
Besides bordering on that, 'Dark-Documentary-Mood,' the footage of the Sainte Fargeau reservoir are priceless as this was done on the eve of the hysteria that would prevent that sort of filming there these days.
That's on the aesthetic side, but as a film, a number of the
slap-stick routines are on the hackneyed side. The use of
wide-angle, prime lenses
really contrasts with the typical, American-ized preference for distances. But some of the sequences have a
somewhat cramped feeling as a result. Also, Jeunet was saying that the film has an unusual method of preparing, known as EVR, that they liked because there are NO DIGITAL FX. And the colors are v. saturated. But really they must
like that as a novelty, as today the result seems tedious and detracts from the true theming.
Imagine an Alfred Hitchcock film with early digital-izing and that would approximate the theming. But would Jeunet like the comparison? As he says repeatedly, ' . . .some of the sequences were sarcastically humorous ;'. . . .possibly the interpretation as 'Scream Horror Genre,' would be too maudlin.
Notwithstanding, the Catholic church has certainly been present for hundreds of years, and ideas about
transmogrification were also a part of the daily lives of the faithful from even before
the dreadful destruction that
WWI and WW II wreaked upon European cities.
Hopefully, he'd want to improve on those deets, but seems that he has gotten onto another direction with the most recent effort, '. . Spivelt.'
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Delicatessen