"Micmacs" Proves There's Such a Thing as Too Much Whimsy

The French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet's "Amelie" is one of my favorite films, in part for all the wonderful, whimsical characters he worked into the picture, some so sparsely, efficiently drawn that they often felt liked collections of itemized quirks. It worked for "Amelie," as the story was about a girl who placed great importance on little trivialities and found ways of using them to her advantage. It doesn't work so well for "Micmacs," Jeunet's latest, where the quirkiness and whimsy is often cranked up a couple notches too high.

"Micmacs," originally "Micmacs à tire-larigot," is a caper film. A young man named Bazil (Dany Boon) is our hero, his life touched by unhappy tragedy from an early age. The opening scenes show his father being killed by a landmine when he was a child, leaving Bazil an orphan. In the present day, he's hit by a stray bullet from a drive-by shooting, which costs him his job and all prospects of securing new employment. Left penniless, homeless, and perhaps about to die at any moment because of the inoperable bullet still lodged in his head, Bazil is in dire straits. Fortunately, he's taken in by a group of oddball salvagers who have made a cozy little home in the nearby landfill. They include a Buster (Dominique Pinon), a human cannonball, Tiny Pete (Michel Cremades), who makes mechanical sculptures, Calculator (Marie-Julie Baup), who is very good with numbers, Mama Chow (Yolande Moreau), the den mother to the group, Remington (Omar Sy), who has an interesting way of speaking, Slammer (Jean-Pierre Marielle), an elderly ex-con, and finally a friendly contortionist, the Elastic Girl (Julie Ferrier).

By chance, Bazil discovers that the landmine that killed his father and the bullet that ruined his life were produced by two big munitions manufacturers, whose factories are situated right across the street from each other. Their owners, Fenouillet (André Dussollier) and Marconi (Nicolas Marié), are bitter rivals and utterly unscrupulous bad eggs who are making a fortune in profits from their villainy. Bazil decides that the two need to be taught a lesson, and he enlists his new friends to help him seek his revenge. What follows is a chaotic, madcap adventure involving sabotage, kidnapping, subterfuge, and elaborate Rube-Goldberg plots that make use of everyone's talents. However, there are a few unforeseen complications that imperil our intrepid band. Also, the Elastic Girl falls for Bazil along the way, and in spite of Bazil's wariness of "twisted" girls, romance is soon in full bloom.

If all of this sounds like a lot of fun, it is. Jeunet's misfits are an endearing bunch, all glad to be of use and loyal to the end. The situations that they get themselves into are inventive and often very funny. The filmmakers get away with putting together a lot of random things together that shouldn't work but somehow do. The trouble is that there's too much. Too many strange characters, too many improbable situations, too much overwhelming wackiness, and if such a thing is possible, too much of Jeunet's fiendish cleverness. The universe of "Micmacs" is few more steps removed from reality than any of Jeunet's previous films, a place of cartoon physics, thought bubbles floating over characters' heads, and coincidences happening at the drop of a hat. After the relative realism of "A Very Long Engagement," Jeunet has gone for the other extreme, often stretching our suspension of disbelief beyond the breaking point. But not always consistently.

As a result, I found the film dreadfully uneven and disjointed. There were some sequences that worked tremendously well, and some that just fell flat. I usually enjoy Jeunet films for their ready embrace of strangeness and whimsy, but something about this outing made these elements feel very calculated and a little forced. Maybe I've seen so many of these rumpled eccentrics and obsessive-compulsive artistes, that I've become immune to their charms. It didn't help that the script was very little light on substance, and the anti-war messages were especially blatant. However, I did admire a lot of the smaller moments and little details - Little Pete's machines, the Elastic Girl's wardrobe, and Bazil taking advantage of the wonders of Youtube. And the performances are great all around. Dany Boon and Julie Ferrier are sweet as the leads, but I got the most enjoyment out of Nicolas Marié and André Dussollier as the hapless villains who really sell the elaborate ending. In fact it wasn't until the ending that I really felt settled into the "Micmacs" universe, and then it was over.

I want to watch this one again, just to see if I might have missed anything in translation or perhaps failed to catch some bit of plot or character development that went by too fast the first time around. I really felt like there was something I wasn't quite getting about "Micmacs," because much of it seemed ever-so-slightly off from Jeunet's usual style and storytelling sensibilities. On the other hand, this is his first film in five years and his first comedy since "Amelie." It could be that he's just gotten a little rusty.

My Favorite Luis Buñuel Film

It took me a long time to warm up to Luis Buñuel, one the most influential filmmakers in cinema history, the most notable purveyor of early Surrealist and absurdist films. I remember sitting through "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" for the first time in a state of stupefaction, completely unable to process what was going on. Since then, I've picked through much of the rest of his filmography, from the early collaborations with Salvador Dali to his later work in France in the 70s. There are still several of the major films I haven't seen yet, including the ones made during his self-imposed Mexican exile in the 50s. And I've learned to appreciate him, with the help of a lot of context provided by Criterion essays and interviews. Ironically, the one Buñuel film that I really love is often considered the counterpart to "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie," - "The Exterminating Angel."

The premise of the film a simple, almost perverse idea. A group of upper class somebodies convene for a dinner party in a mansion, retire to a salon to listen to one of the ladies play the piano, and then discover that they are unable to leave the room. Some invisible force compels them to remain, though all of them want to leave. Also, no one can enter the house to rescue them or provide any supplies. As hours turn into days, and the guests run out of food and medicine, their civility crumbles. First it's minor breaches in decorum, then a complete breakdown of social rules and structure, a theme Buñuel would return to many times in his films. The guests tear up the walls of the room to get to water pipes, chant spells to appease angry spirits, and finally descend to the brink of savagery in their desperation.

There is never any explanation given for the imprisonment, only some coded hints regarding religion and social rituals. Perhaps the guests unknowingly tapped into some sinister cosmic "Twilight Zone" force by committing some seemingly inconsequential faux pas. The key to the mystery turns out to be repetition of certain mundane actions, which Buñuel cleverly works into the narrative of the film by including repeated lines and scenes and acts throughout, some instances more noticeable than others. What initially appear to be editing errors turn out to be clues to the logic of the film's universe. But unlike some of the more surreal Buñuel films, this one is narratively coherent and at no point are there any dream sequences or odd tangential scenes to confuse the reality of the events being presented. It's certainly one of Buñuel's most accessible pictures in spite of the surreal premise.

"The Exterminating Angel" is classified as satire by most, or even as a particularly black comedy. Made after right after the firestorm of religious controversy that greeted "Viridiana," Buñuel's target this time is the upper classes. The guests at the dinner part are mostly terribly unsympathetic, portrayed as disconnected, insensitive, elitist snobs, who are useless in the face of crisis. The staff of the mansion quits the premises just before the dinner takes place, perhaps sensing the calamity to come, an instinct found wanting in the unfortunate guests. Left on their own, powerless and isolated, these supposedly civilized men and women repeatedly fail to cooperate in their efforts, wasting much of their time trying to escape responsibility or to shift blame to others. Outside the house, would-be rescuers and authorities are similarly stymied. The Church, doesn't escape a few pointed jabs either, particularly in the ominous ending sequence that I will not spoil here.

I've also seen the film classified as a fantasy or genre picture, which doesn't feel quite right. There are elements of horror, mystery, and possibly the supernatural at work, but the story is concerned primarily with the drastic undercutting of the social constructs that the characters are dependent on, and the mechanism by which that is achieved is really arbitrary. The events of the film would have played out the same way if the inexplicable force imprisoning the guests was replaced by, say, a garrison of enemy soldiers or a natural disaster. Buñuel simply dispenses with a physical antagonist in favor of a metaphysical conundrum. There have been other, more complex allegorical films made in recent years that occupy similar territory, such as Alfonso Cuaron's "Children of Men" and Fernando Meirelle's "Blindness," which both use science-fiction devices to examine social upheaval.

I find "The Exterminating Angel" more effective for its simplicity. In interviews Buñuel's would later complain about lamentable acting from his principles and lousy production values, as the film was shot in 1962 on a modest budget in Mexico. It might be the language barrier or my lack of familiarity with the culture, but I couldn't see any evidence of corners being cut. Rather, I expect that the limitations of the production forced Buñuel to create something starker, tighter and more focused than many of his more celebrated Surrealist films. "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie," by contrast, maddeningly meanders along with its characters. This is necessary by the plot's design of course, but results in a much less satisfactory viewing experience. The pressure of the enclosed spaces and mounting tension of "Exterminating Angel" force Buñuel to give us a fairly straightforward narrative and even something like a resolution - if only for a moment.

Is it the best example of Buñuel's work? Probably not. But it's a good contender for the one that leaves the most impact, as it's the one that's stuck with me the longest.

When Spock met Uhura

I rewatched the 2009 "Star Trek" reboot recently, and marveled at how well J.J. Abrams had managed to pull off one of the best franchise updates I've ever seen, despite one of the most notorious sci-fi fandoms in the history of sci-fi fandoms breathing down his neck. He and his collaborators cast exactly the right people to play the iconic characters, knew exactly which elements could be changed and which had to be retained at all costs, made the material accessible to newcomers, and turned out an excellent summer action movie too.

The original 60s "Star Trek" was long before my time, and to date I've only seen a few of the most famous episodes. However, I knew the feature films that came along later, so I got to know Kirk and Spock and all the rest that way. I'm sure there were a lot of the little callbacks and references in the new film that went over my head, but there was one that really caught my attention that I haven't seen much discussion of. In fact, I'm not sure if it was even meant to be taken as a reference at all.

One of the major changes to the new "Trek" was the surprise romantic pairing of Mr. Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Lieutenant Uhura (Zoe Saldana). The relationship raised some eyebrows among some Trekkers, who were quick to point out that Spock was never seriously paired off with anyone in all the "Trek" media that came before, and the prospect was highly unlikely due to the fabled stoicism of the Vulcan race. It bears repeating that the Spock of the film is not the same as the Spock of the television series. The new version has more access to his emotions, or perhaps hasn't grown to embrace the logical to quite the same degree as his older counterpart yet. And of course Spock's parents, the Vulcan Sarek and the human Amanda Grayson, were happy together, so there is established precedent in the "Trek" canon for such a relationship.

Others expressed disappointment that Uhura, the only major female member of the cast, had been consigned to the stereotypical girlfriend role. I don't buy that line of thinking either, since Uhura was established as a very strong individual presence in the film early on and stays in the thick of the action as part of the bridge crew of the Enterprise throughout. This is why the revelation that she and Spock were involved with each other was such a pleasant surprise. Personally, I also found it a nice reversal of the "alien princess" trope, where science-fiction heroes invariably end up with exotic extraterrestrial beauties, as recently seen in "Avatar," which ironically also starred Zoe Saldana.

But what was the reference I caught? To "Plato's Stepchildren," the landmark episode where the original Uhura and Kirk, Nichelle Nichols and William Shatner shared the first interracial kiss on American television. First aired in 1968, the kiss itself broke boundaries, though it lacked any sort of romantic context, and the idea of a full blown interracial relationship being incorporated into the show was unthinkable. Now, nobody would bat an eye. Of all the complaints about the pairing of Spock and Uhura, no one objects because they're people of two different ethnicities. In the new film, not only does Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) get to flirt with Uhura, a red herring that draws on the fans' knowledge of that particular episode, she's seen as a real potential love interest for him before we find out that she's already involved with the other male lead, Spock.

I'm not sure that J.J. Abrams or the other writers necessarily intended to make any sort of social statement, or even if they meant to reference the Kirk/Uhura kiss at all. They easily could have come up with the idea independently, without any knowledge of the earlier episode, though the film was so good about addressing its roots, I think it's more likely that they were completely aware of what they were doing. Forty years after the original "Star Trek" aired, it's nice to see how far we've come in social acceptance. For every grumbling fan who can't get their heads around the idea of Spock and Uhura, for whatever reason, there are dozens who adore the pairing. The fan communities that have popped up around the reboot have turned out a staggering amount of fanfiction about the relationship, speculating on how the two met, how they got together, and what the future might bring.

Most of the criticism has long since died down, and the buzz is slowly building up for the next film in the series. The only real naysayers of any vehemence anymore are those fans who think that the new Mr. Spock would be better off with a different member of the crew – Captain Kirk.

Hmm. Maybe we can try for that one with the next reboot.