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Delicatessen

  • 1991
  • Tous publics
  • 1h 39m
IMDb RATING
7.5/10
93K
YOUR RATING
Delicatessen (1991)
Trailer for Delicatessen: 25th Anniversary
Play trailer2:14
1 Video
99+ Photos
Dark ComedySatireComedyCrime

Post-apocalyptic surrealist black comedy about the landlord of an apartment building who occasionally prepares a delicacy for his odd tenants.Post-apocalyptic surrealist black comedy about the landlord of an apartment building who occasionally prepares a delicacy for his odd tenants.Post-apocalyptic surrealist black comedy about the landlord of an apartment building who occasionally prepares a delicacy for his odd tenants.

  • Directors
    • Marc Caro
    • Jean-Pierre Jeunet
  • Writers
    • Jean-Pierre Jeunet
    • Marc Caro
    • Gilles Adrien
  • Stars
    • Marie-Laure Dougnac
    • Dominique Pinon
    • Pascal Benezech
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    7.5/10
    93K
    YOUR RATING
    • Directors
      • Marc Caro
      • Jean-Pierre Jeunet
    • Writers
      • Jean-Pierre Jeunet
      • Marc Caro
      • Gilles Adrien
    • Stars
      • Marie-Laure Dougnac
      • Dominique Pinon
      • Pascal Benezech
    • 221User reviews
    • 81Critic reviews
    • 66Metascore
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Nominated for 1 BAFTA Award
      • 15 wins & 16 nominations total

    Videos1

    Delicatessen: 25th Anniversary
    Trailer 2:14
    Delicatessen: 25th Anniversary

    Photos141

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    + 136
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    Top cast30

    Edit
    Marie-Laure Dougnac
    Marie-Laure Dougnac
    • Julie Clapet
    Dominique Pinon
    Dominique Pinon
    • Louison
    Pascal Benezech
    • Tried to Escape
    Jean-Claude Dreyfus
    Jean-Claude Dreyfus
    • Clapet
    Karin Viard
    Karin Viard
    • Mademoiselle Plusse
    Ticky Holgado
    Ticky Holgado
    • Marcel Tapioca
    Anne-Marie Pisani
    Anne-Marie Pisani
    • Madame Tapioca
    Boban Janevski
    • Young Rascal
    Mikael Todde
    • Young Rascal
    • (as Mikaël Todde)
    Edith Ker
    • Grandmother
    Rufus
    Rufus
    • Robert Kube
    Jacques Mathou
    Jacques Mathou
    • Roger
    Howard Vernon
    Howard Vernon
    • Frog Man
    Chick Ortega
    • Postman
    Silvie Laguna
    • Aurore Interligator
    Jean-François Perrier
    Jean-François Perrier
    • Georges Interligator
    Dominique Zardi
    Dominique Zardi
    • Taxi Driver
    Patrick Paroux
    Patrick Paroux
    • Puk
    • Directors
      • Marc Caro
      • Jean-Pierre Jeunet
    • Writers
      • Jean-Pierre Jeunet
      • Marc Caro
      • Gilles Adrien
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews221

    7.592.8K
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    Featured reviews

    praemius

    A sublime fusion of sickening grotesquerie and sentimental clowning.

    Jeunet and Caro, with the help of their familiar repertory of actors, create a deeply disturbing and violent world where only a few shreds of conventional social mores remain. These scraps of morality only serve to delineate more clearly the overall decline and collapse of their dystopia. We see a butcher's shop; the proprietor, played by Jean-Claude Dreyfus, is evil almost to the point of caricature. He only manages to survive by killing his lodgers when they get behind with the rent and selling them as meat. However, the situation is given an added twist when we learn that all the lodgers are aware of this; a woman who is sold a joint of mother sheds a couple of stifled tears and mutters she would have liked to have said goodbye. Similarly, the butcher is most apologetic when he accidentally chops off the foot of one of his clients who has paid his rent in full.

    Into this hellish world is placed someone with his moral values relatively intact. In this case, it is a circus performer played by the marvellously rubber-faced Dominique Pinon. A less engaging actor might have made this character seem two-dimensional, as he appears to have no faults whatsoever (except a set of over-mobile lips). He enthrals the lodgers' children with his games, is immensely chivalrous to the butcher's daughter and plays the musical saw. Finally, an old edition of his act is broadcast on the flickering black-and-white television, and even the most bloodthirsty lodgers are amazed and delighted. The butcher's jealousy is roused; Good and Innocence is forced to fight Evil and Hatred.

    As such, the plot is relatively straightforward. It is the sheer surrealistic imagination that Jeunet and Caro bring to their films that prevent them being unremittingly bleak or simple morality tales. They display a brilliant sense of musical timing- the whole building frequently becomes an orchestra of creaking bed-springs, croaking frogs, and crackling radios; above all this soars a love-duet of a cello and a musical saw. The faded `look' of the film complements this. With the exception of a single television remote control, nothing here would be out of place in in a exhibition of 40s and 50s design. In `The City of Lost Children' the exuberance of the design threatens to swamp the slender storyline on occasions; here, the more `grown-up' themes and less fantastic design go hand in hand.

    (A word of warning about the video release- the subtitles appear to have been written be a couple of Frenchmen who really ought to have concentrated harder in their English classes at school. Apart from that, I wholeheartedly recommend this joyously grotesque film.)
    pooch-8

    Mind-blowing, inventive comedy

    Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro crafted a near-perfect film in Delicatessen, an almost indescribably unique French comedy concerning cannibalism, troglodytes, a circus clown, myopia, suicide, and sex -- and it's all set following some kind of apocalyptic catastrophe. An extraordinary group of actors (with faces worthy of Fellini) play the desperate residents of an apartment where one's next meal could literally be the neighbor from down the hall. The elastic-featured Dominique Pinon, as the clown turned handyman, is a joy to watch. Delicatessen is packed with Rube Goldberg-style set-pieces (I especially love the fixing of the bed spring as well as the rooftop battle during the television broadcast) that leave you breathless.
    9capkronos

    An often ingenious, always entertaining cult favorite from France.

    If you think the cannibal movie subgenre has been milked dry... think again! This one will have you from the opening credits. It's set in a crumbling apartment building in 21st century, post-apocalyptic Paris where food is at a minimum, grains are used as money and the butcher downstairs runs a black-market deli providing clientel with what seems to be the only meat product available, and it ain't chicken.

    Dominique Pinon is an ex-circus clown who answers a personal ad doing odd jobs there and encounters assorted weirdos while being targeted as the main course. There's a noncomformist who eats snails and frogs, a band of grimy cave-dwelling looters, an unhinged woman whose botched suicide attempts are comic highlights and an amazing musical sequence featuring a cello, creaky bed springs, machinery, drills and other noises combining to create a symphony of sounds.

    The oppressive atmosphere and murky brown color schemes could have easily turned this into a dreary disaster, but the directors keep it offbeat, surprising and clever throughout, and don't miss their chance to throw in some inventive black comedy.
    8jluis1984

    The brilliant debut of Caro & Jeunet

    In the late 70s, french director Jean-Pierre Jeunet and designer Marc Caro met and found they shared a lot of interests in the visual arts, their friendship soon became an artistic team that would spent the whole 80s making short films where the duo was able to explore and master the cinema language, perfecting their storytelling abilities and visual design skills, preparing themselves to make a career in film-making. Their efforts were crowned in 1991, when they were finally able to take their craft to a full feature length film, in the project that would become their breakthrough in the film industry and the proper beginning of their careers as filmmakers: the post-apocalyptic comedy "Delicatessen".

    The world of "Delicatessen" is a dark bleak France where there is apparently no law and food is incredibly sparse (and is now used as currency). In this post-apocalyptic world, the residents of an apartment building in the middle of nowhere have found a solution to the hunger thanks to their landlord, the butcher Clapet (Jean-Claude Dreyfus), who from time to time kills the building's handyman to feed the bizarre group of tenants. One day, former clown Louison (Dominique Pinon) arrives to the building and gets the handyman position, but unfortunately for Clapet and the other tenants, the butcher's daughter Julie (Marie-Laure Dougnac) has fallen in love with Louison, and will do whatever is necessary to stop the madness of the delicatessen.

    Written by Gilles Adrien (who also wrote many of the previous Jeunet & Caro shorts) as well as Jeunet & Caro themselves, "Delicatessen" is a wonderfully imaginative tale of sweet romance and hilarious black comedy that gives an unexpected light-hearted twist to a plot that most writers would treat as a serious subject matter. And surprisingly it works, as while the story is anything but complex, the assortment of strange (yet very human) characters that populate the world of "Delicatessen" truly become the movie's soul. And not only the main characters, as every single one of them (no matter how small the role is) is highly detailed and serves a specific function as if the whole building was one of the odd machines that still work in this post-apocalyptic portrait of France.

    Visually, the film is simply sublime. Since the directors decided to divide responsibilities, Marc Caro took full control of the production design and the artistic elements of the movie, so with this freedom Caro's inventive artistic vision reaches new heights creating a movie that could be described as a moving canvas. Highly atmospheric, the french duo takes the cinematography (by Darius Khondji) to the next level mixing techniques and showing a whole range of influences that go from German Expressionism to 40s modernism, resulting in one of the most beautiful looking movies ever done. Still, the movie is more than a visual fest, as Jeunet (in charge of guiding the actors) shows a complete domain over his cast & crew keeping the many elements of the film working nicely in the right place.

    As written above, the characters are the film's soul, and the ensemble of actors playing them really made a terrific job in the film. Dominique Pinon (who would become one of Jeunet's regular collaborators) delivers a subtle and charming performance as the ex-clown Louison. He is very believable in the role, and gives the character a very human touch, essential for the kind of character he is playing. The same can be said of Marie-Laure Dougnac, who plays Louison's love interest, Julie, one of the "more normal" characters in the movie. Jean-Claude Dreyfus as Clapet the Butcher is simply delightful as the story's "villian", and basically every member of the cast delivers an unforgettable performance no matter how long or short is their screen time (Silvie Laguna for example, is really wonderful).

    "Delicatessen" is a solid debut by this two skillful french artists, and it already shows why the two quickly became an important team in the French fantasy cinema. Their very own brand of surrealist fantasy flows freely through the film making a unique visual fest (although it definitely goes a bit over-the-top at times), and while it doesn't reach the artistic level of their follow-up (the 1995 classic "La Cité Des Enfants Perdus"), it's still a nicely done movie that most importantly, never gets boring or tiresome. Unlike their later films, "Delicatessen" may not be for everyone, as it's mix of black comedy and surreal fantasy may seem at times too close to absurd to be enjoyable. However, those with a taste for the bizarre will find a great movie in this French comedy.

    While "Delicatessen" still shows the excess of the young and raw talent of Jeunet & Caro, it's not hard to see why they became known worldwide after this initial success, as this movie shows the enormous potential of their skills as filmmakers. This brilliant mixture of genres is definitely a very recommended movie, and like "La Cité Des Enfants Perdus" ("City of the Lost Children"), an essential film of the 90s. 8/10
    8Dockelektro

    The cornerstone of originality

    Clever ideas and good notion of filmmaking are at the core of this movie, whose storyline is the smallest asset. But you won't really care when you see it, because even though the story isn't really elaborate, what you have here is one of the most original movies you'll ever get your eyes on. The setting is perfect, with no historic or geographic references, only an estranged building, which doesn't have a single straight normal tenant. The result is a magnificent work of actors, cinematography and set dressing, that makes the most of visual resources for a movie. The directors Jeunet & Caro show their true potential in this movie that will keep you glued with its naive-like comedy style, and its unique set of characters, which could generate a separate movie about each and every one of them. Magnificent, and truly original.

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    Related interests

    Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Sian Clifford in Fleabag (2016)
    Dark Comedy
    Peter Sellers in Dr. Folamour ou : comment j'ai appris à ne plus m'en faire et à aimer la bombe (1964)
    Satire
    Will Ferrell in Présentateur vedette: La légende de Ron Burgundy (2004)
    Comedy
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    Crime

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Jean-Pierre Jeunet got the idea for a cannibal butcher when living in an apartment above a butcher's shop. Each morning at 7am he would hear the metallic clash of knives and a voice shout, "Chop chop!" His girlfriend said he was carving up the neighbors, and it would be their turn next week.
    • Goofs
      Every time Julie plays the cello, the audio is behind what she plays. This is most visible in the first playing session when she is practising by playing C major up and down; the lag is several notes.
    • Quotes

      Louison: This is a job for the Australian!

    • Crazy credits
      In the opening credits, crew members' names appear on objects that the camera tracks across: the director of photography's name appears on a camera, the composer's name on a broken 12" record, etc.
    • Connections
      Featured in Siskel & Ebert & the Movies: White Sands/A Midnight Clear/Passed Away/The Playboys/Delicatessen (1992)
    • Soundtracks
      Entry of the Gladiators
      Written by Julius Fucík

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    FAQ19

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • April 17, 1991 (France)
    • Country of origin
      • France
    • Language
      • French
    • Also known as
      • Делікатеси
    • Filming locations
      • France
    • Production companies
      • Constellation
      • Union Générale Cinématographique (UGC)
      • Hachette Première
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • FRF 24,000,000 (estimated)
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $1,803,257
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $4,733
      • Apr 5, 1992
    • Gross worldwide
      • $1,804,142
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 1h 39m(99 min)
    • Color
      • Color
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.85 : 1

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