Last week, my parents (and their dog) were staying. On Tuesday evening, they suggested we watch the movie Micmacs. It is incredibly rare for me to watch a movie on a school night - in fact, I think this might be the only occasion. Thankfully, we started relatively early and it is not drastically long.
I was reminded of the movie that started all this year's movie viewing, Amelie. This is hardly surprising for several reasons. It's made by the same man. They're both set in Paris. The music is worth a listen (and so French!). In French with subtitles, yet language is not a huge deal in either. Eccentrics. People doing good. The Metro. Ordinary people going about their normal lives (however ordinary or eccentric that might be) and making a difference in other lives. The lighting and camera work are clearly from the same brain. Plus, some of the actors are in both.
The start has me thinking on the randomness of life. The father is killed by a landmine - not totally random, it was his job to find and remove the threat, but still not from any real cause of his own. The main character is shot in the head by a gun dropping. None of us is an island, no matter how isolated we may feel, or how selfishly we live. Everything we do (or do not do) is part of the bigger picture of life. But it is in the operating theatre that one of the greatest lines of the movie is heard. The surgeon is debating whether or not to remove the bullet - if he does, there's a good chance Bazil (played by Dany Boon) will 'be a vegetable', but if the bullet is not removed he could die at any time. The nurse says, "Better to live and risk sudden death than live with no idea you're alive." After commenting that she should be a philosopher, a coin is flipped - they choose not to operate. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we all had the freedom to live and risk sudden death? Not to be afraid of what others might think. Not be worried about failing at something, or having someone be better than us.
Bazil is then adopted by a group of eccentrics. They are scavengers, salvaging scrap metal and odd objects, then fixing them up. This odd family is a group of salvage themselves, every one of them slightly odd by 'normal' standards. Yet they have such a sense of Together, a family of misfits that appreciate each others' qualities. And when Bazil has a goal, to bring down the company that killed his dad and the company that produced the bullet that shot him, they're all in it together. United we stand and all. This is essentially, then, a revenge movie. Well, standing up for yourself - like a French male Erin Brokovich...kinda...ordinary folk against large corporations, that's what I'm thinking. And the revenge is so good. So clever, and incredibly satisfying.
Other notes about this movie: the wordplay is wonderful. Very clever language, and I wish I knew more French to know if it really works just as well in English as it does in French (the gays/gaze misunderstanding for example). Another favourite line highlights my position on the French language. I know a bit of French, but it's never been a comfortable language for me (incidentally, having recently started learning Spanish, I find a lot of phrases come to me in French - I'm not sure why). One of the dads asks his son if he knows who Rimbaud is. "You need to work out" replies the son. The dad stares at him for a few seconds, them replies "Not Rambo. Rimbaud". And, French being what it is, these two names sound exactly the same...
I really really enjoy the music, especially the use of Mozart's clarinet concerto slow movement for one of the arms dealers - compared to the rest of the music it comes across as boring and staid. There is much variety in this soundtrack, some of it sounding quite classical with its combination of piano and violin, other parts sounding quite industrial to match the salvage activities.
Lip-syncing. We see Bazil lip-syncing near the beginning (a little odd seeing him lip-sync in French to a movie that's originally in English but has been dubbed in French). But lip-syncing is one of his Things. Even in one of the negotiations, he is doing this. My biggest laugh comes though when he is in a Metro station. He takes up a position on the other side of a pillar from a woman singing, and mimes along to her. Gold.
Scavenger art. Yes, the group of scavengers pulls together to help Bazil stand up to the arms dealers. But one of them is really an artist. With bits of scraps, random found objects and things that no longer 'work', he creates something beautiful. There is a toy mouse (with pegs for feet) near the beginning, and his skills in remote control are valued in the mission, but the last creation we see is my favourite - a blouse and skirt on a hanger, twirling this way and that, it suggests a woman dancing - it is so simple but so beautiful. Another metaphor of course - even someone we might see as on the scrapheap will have something beautiful about them, have a quality about them just waiting to be noticed, used and appreciated, we just need to have eyes to see it.
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