Toronto – The French are not linked to eccentricity without solid evidence. When the opening scene rolled for Micmacs, which is when Bazil’s mom found out her husband was vaporized by a landmine, I could have bursted out laughing because the YELP she gave had no audible sense of shock or grief except that it was implied by context. It was this little, giddy yelp that you inhale after seeing a baby monkey being accidently thrown into a 1′ diameter well from a 60 ft tall branch by its sibling, sort of saying: wow, it’s just one of the ways the world works… let’s drink to it!

And this being a comedy/satire, Micmacs à tire-larigot got the tone down exactly right, which is nothing less than expected from the director of Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain, Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Essentially, the story revolves around Bazil, whose chance encounter with a bullet left him twitchy, jobless, homeless, and somewhat wanting in the revenge department. Being quite unaffected by the bullet in his noggin and ever adaptable, Bazil lived from day to day without a care. Until he was recruited by the Micmacs (is this some pun on the Micmacs indians?) for their own junk salvage operation. As luck would again have it, one day he discovers the headquarters of the arms manufacturers – one of them responsible for the landmine that killed his father and the other made the bullet in his head – across the street from each other. Now infatuated by the idea of a revenge, he sets the plan in motion to disrupt the tense relationship between the two competitors. Not to be left out, his new found family chip in with their respective talents, and the world discovers what homeless people are really made of.

I have to say, this movie manages to make homelessness in Paris look romantic (also the timing is right on with the recession!) I guess that its the either the idealized French attitude at work or a purposeful juxtaposition of money != happiness. Bazil is literally brimming with content just lying on the decrepit sandbanks of the Seine. Whereas his nemesis CEOs are uncomfortable in their own skin and constantly worry about deals/sales and their obsessions: De Fenouillet collects surplus body parts of celebrities, and Marconi wouldn’t even kiss his son goodbye without testing him on the tonnage of atomic bombs. Jeunet shows a particular way of assembling uber eccentric characters into a monsterously hilarious whole like putting together the Power Ranger zords. Together with the constant use of Rube Goldberg machines, almost every moment of this movie was funny and endearing at the same time. Oh there are so many moment – the orchestra behind his back during an important moment of realization, using a vacuum cleaner to suck up Churchill’s nail clippings, or simply every single deathly serious moment was treated as mere facts of life. The set, the props, the contraptions constructed from salvaged goods are so well-designed that they could probably turn a pretty profit if they started a product line at IKEA. Some say this movie is a commentary about weapons manufacture and war. But in fact, Jeunet made it clear in the Q&A: “It’s obvious that war is stupid. But what’s more scary is when people lose sight of what they’re actually doing. The engineers and scientists at the weapon plants we visited were all nice people, polite… but they completely forget what these weapons do.” It’s also funny how he joked that this project was to be “Life of Pi” – but then he couldn’t find a nice tiger… but he did find 4 mechanical contraption created by this artist so this movie was born. The dancer at the end was probably one of the most beautiful thing I’ve seen on film for a while. When the credits rolls, you will want more. And at the same time, you won’t. Because anymore would cause you to abandon all possessions and move to Paris in your PJ. Whether the truth is close or far from the story, well, that’s for another time. Since Jeunet mentioned that he ran out of materials in Paris… watch out San Francisco, you’re next.

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