Delicatessen

I've just started learning French. Yay for me! I have to assume that French people are really good at maths, because learning numbers in French is so complicated.

Anyway, this week, I've been watching French films. There's so many of them. This should be very helpful for learning a language.

So which one did I watch?

Set in a post-apocalyptic future, Delicatessen involves an apartment block advertising for random strangers to come and 'work' doing oddjobs in the building, as a cover for their intentions to eat them. A former circus performer named Louisson turns up, and the building's quirky tenants (if you saw his more famous film Amelie, then you know what to expect here) are gradually torn apart by his ongoing presence.

At times the film seems to be a repetition of quirk, quirk, quirk, more QUIRKS! Vive le France! The plot somehow doesn't quite follow, and there are a few plot points that don't really get explained (what is he stashing the corn for? What happened to the one-legged guy? Why is that guy hogging all the snails and frog legs* and why didn't they just off him? How is he able to maintain that enviroment if nothing can grow? Where is all the TV coming from? If everyone seems to eat each other, how come Louisson seems so unaware of the reason he's there? Is Aurore's suicidal cycle because there's no cheese -- I would have killed myself when the Boursin was gone. I love that stuff!) while the climax seems a bit rushed.

It's the sort of film that I think you would find enjoyable once or twice, but which eventually would sort of wind you up (as Amelie does when you've seen it quite a lot).

*or is that one of those typical foreign film scenes where someone has to eat some unusual national delicacy so the audience will go 'WTF IS HE EATING???!!!' See also Jar City's takeaway sheep head