Delicatessen
Rating M
Synopsis
The WORLD MOVIES Channel Radar has been switched on and is sweeping the world’s film vaults for hidden cinematic gems, underground cuts and innovative eye candy.
The Radar: Located. Chosen. Screened. In a darkly bizarre and futuristic world, food is scarce and meat has become a rare delicacy. Grain is used as money, people have resorted to eating their shoes and cannibalism is rampant. A malevolent and insinuating butcher owns a small apartment block filled with a rich array of eccentricities, where he routinely runs an ad in a newspaper for a maintenance worker. The butcher’s practice is to hire a new maintenance worker, then kill him and the sell the meat to the residents of the apartment building, who have all become cannibals.
When the butcher’s daughter falls in love with the newest handyman victim, she tries to convince her father to spare Stanley from the chopping block, but he refuses. Distraught and desperate to save her beloved, the butcher’s daughter seeks help from the Troglodytes, an underground vegetarian group that are engaged in a war on cannibal crime.
Superbly conceived and brilliant executed, Delicatessen is an absurdist visual extravaganza based on the wacky screenplays by Gilles Adrien, with very little blood or gore, despite the cannibalism subject. Surreal, bizarre and hilarious, this beautifully textured collaboration between directors Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro is a first feature for both. Jeunet went on to make the beloved and justly acclaimed, Amélie. The phrase 'un film de Jeunet et Caro' has since become a fore-token of twisted fairytale narratives, dark humour, and sumptuously vivid visual effects.
Delicatessen was nominated for Best Film Not In The English Language at the 1993 BAFTA Film Awards, and won four César Awards in 1992.
When will this screen next?
Not currently screening
Encore Screenings
No screenings scheduled at this time
Other films in this Genre
Other films by this Director
Other films by these Stars