Concrete Playground

Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s uniquely irreverent brand of quirk always makes for a fun trip to the cinema. Known for capturing his zany characters in a gorgeous, idealised, French film reality, Jeunet is probably most famous for introducing the world to Audrey Tautou in Amélie. Micmacs sees Jeunet and his long time collaborator Guillaume Laurant assemble yet another weird and wonderful crew of misfits.

After losing his father to a landmine and almost losing his life to an errant bullet, Bazil (Danny Boon) is living a hard knock life. Jobless, homeless and with a bullet still rattling around in his brain that could kill him at any moment, Bazil busks for bread until he is taken in by a motley crew of scavengers, with variously strange talents. Together they take on the arms manufacturers responsible by exploiting their curious peccadilloes to hilarious ends.

Micmacs is an endearing ensemble led by Boon’s pitch-perfect performance as the gormless everyman prone to bizarre flights of fancy. Citing Toy Story as a reference, Jeunet’s characters clearly come from that heightened, indeed cartoonish sensibility that is fantastically at odds with the politics of weapons manufacturing. The result will work for those happy to sign up for an amusingly lo-fi fable that turns society’s trash into a cinematic treasure.