Tripwire Reviews Jeunet and Caro’s Delicatessen 4K Ultra Edition

Slice Of Life

Tripwire’s editor-in-chief takes a look at the 4K Ultra Edition of Jeunet and Caro’s Delicatessen out now from StudioCanal…

Delicatessen 4K Ultra HD Blu Ray/ DVD
Directors: Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro
Stars: Marie-Laure Dougnac, Dominique Pinon, Pascal Benezech, Jean-Claude Dreyfus

Originally released back in 1991, Jeunet and Caro’s darkly satirical slice of Gallic sci-fi was an immediate hit with audiences. Caro had begun his career creating strips for seminal French comic anthology Metal Hurlant while Jeunet was a self-taught filmmaker. The pair had teamed up on a series of ambitious shorts before this, their feature debut.

Delicatessen’s protagonist, clown Louison (Pinon), finds himself living above Clapet’s butcher shop. Clapet, as it turns out, has a dark secret: the meat he sells in his shop isn’t exactly the usual fare.

Jeunet and Caro have created a compelling and wonderfully skewed world where what we currently take for granted is in short supply, while Louison is a brilliantly unconventional protagonist. It isn’t just Pinon who commands the screen here either, as there are some memorably intense and committed performances from the likes of Dreyfus as psychotic butcher Clapet, Karen Viard as his nymphomaniac wife, and Anne-Marie Pisani’s Madame Tapioca,  Louison’s timid girlfriend and Clapet’s daughter. Thematically, the film examines subjects like class and how our society teeters on a knife edge between civilisation and chaos. Tonally, it manages to straddle black comedy and surreal action with an expert eye.

Stylistically, Delicatessen has overtones of Terry Gilliam at his most outré,  with some magnificent production design by Caro himself. Shot by Darius Khondji, who was also director of photography on David Fincher’s Seven, Polanski’s The Ninth Gate and The Lost City Of Z, the film has a beguilingly unreal feel to it. You can see the influence of bande desinee geniuses like Moebius and the strips of Metal Hurlant here as well (unsurprising considering  that Caro had worked for them) and even the UK’s 2000AD.

The chemistry between Jeunet and Caro as its joint directors offers something that is clearly innovative and pushes the envelope. This 4K restored version has beefed up (if you’ll pardon the pun) the browns and greens here, giving us a richer and more immersive version of the film.

Delicatessen was a breath of fresh air when it first came out, and this restored version brings us even closer to the directors’ vision. The extras here are fascinating, although some are legacy extras from the Blu Ray released for the film’s twentieth anniversary. There is a brand new Jeunet and Caro interview which was filmed for this new edition, which does offer some new and interesting insights into the making of this film. It’s over thirty years old but Delicatessen feels as fresh now as it did when it was first released.

Delicatessen is available to buy on Blu Ray now