Delicatessen

Watching Man Bites Dog the other day made me realize that I’ve been meaning to check out Delicatessen for a while ... and then wondered if I had seen it before ... it all seemed so familiar... (Did I really see it before?) The setting is some post-apocalyptic France seemingly circa 1950, with much if not all of civilization, politics and economy burned to cinders. The plot centers on an apartment building run by the local butcher. I don’t think I’m giving anything away when I add that most animals have become extinct due to hunting, and that therefore the butcher doesn’t trade in animal meat, if you know what I mean... The best-known sequence is also the funniest, in which we see and especially hear tenants in the building play cello along a metronome, pump a bicycle wheel, beat a carpet, paint the ceiling, knit, drill holes in those little animal-call boxes, all in the rhythm set by the landlord making love to his mistress atop the squeaking bedsprings... Hahahaha! Definitely worth watching if you care for dark humor, but you have to be in the mood for weirdness... (And I haven’t even mentioned the Troglodists!)