Jean-Pierre Jeunet Movies
Several years before he helmed the fourth Alien film, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, together with fellow French cinema wunderkind/creative partner Marc Caro, made his mark on international cinema with two of the most distinctive films of the 1990s. Collaborating throughout the 1980s on ads, music videos, and such shorts as Le Manège (1980), Jeunet and Caro honed their signature visual flair and darkly comic sensibility; Jeunet's solo effort Foutaises (1989) won a César for Best Short Film. Bringing their unique style to feature films in the 1990s, Jeunet and Caro's debut work Delicatessen (1991) became an international art film sensation. Hailed for its grotesquely comic and oddly touching tale of post-nuclear survival amid a group of eccentrics in an ominous, almost palpably clammy yet cartoon-like "retro future" setting, Delicatessen attracted an ardent following and earned several festival prizes and two Césars. Flush from Delicatessen's success, Jeunet and Caro finally made a feature they'd been planning for 14 years, the adult fairy tale The City of Lost Children (1995). Shot on elaborate sets with an international cast (including the voice of French star Jean-Louis Trintignant), Jeunet and Caro created an inventively detailed fantasy world to depict the story of an evil scientist's plan to pilfer children's dreams. Though some critics were left scratching their heads over the plot, The City of Lost Children's rapturous visuals impressed audiences and turned it into another cult hit for Jeunet and Caro. Parting directorial ways with Caro after The City of Lost Children, Jeunet headed to Hollywood to direct Alien Resurrection (1997). Though Jeunet had always handled the actors while Caro supervised the images in their films, Caro's credited presence as a design supervisor ensured that Jeunet's entry in the Alien franchise bore their distinctive visual stamp as well as Jeunet's ability to convey human pathos amidst grotesquerie. Opening to mixed reviews from critics and fans, Alien Resurrection did not quite live up to its title promise for the series.Though his stint in Hollywood left something to be desired in a project that seemed perfectly suited to the eccentric director's darkly skewed and complex visuals, Jeunet found himself the recipient of almost overwhelming praise with his 2001 release Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain. Released stateside as simply Amelie, the film showed Jeunet more comfortable with his distinct visual style than ever, with the darkness that had enshrouded his previous films shifting toward a brighter, more optimistic outlook. A labor of love that he had been scripting even before taking the director's chair for Alien Resurrection, Amelie told the simple story of a remarkable woman who finds that she has a unique gift for influencing the lives of others in almost magical ways.
Working his signature visual magic on Paris, Jeunet transforms the city into a deliriously beautiful, amber-tinged fantasy reality (complete with the graffiti digitally removed), complementing a fanciful quest that encompasses mysterious photo booth detritus, humorously gaslighting a cruel grocer, and a globe-trotting garden gnome. Topped off by winsome star Audrey Tautou, Amélie broke box office records in France, won several European Film awards and redeemed Jeunet as an art house darling in the U.S. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi
An underground lair serves as the point of inspiration for this deeply whimsical fantasy comedy (with echoes of Jodorowsky's Rainbow Thief) from French cause célèbre Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amélie, The City of Lost Children). The locale is post-9/11 Europe. As arms dealers go head to head with one another in a series of violent skirmishes -- suggesting that an apocalyptic cataclysm may be lingering on the horizon -- the unfortunate Bazil (Dany Boon) still reels from the long-ago death of his father from a roadside bomb, an event that left him orphaned as a boy. Now employed in a low-paying job as a video-store clerk, and still trying to determine how he fits into the scheme of things, he gets hit by a stray bullet from a drive-by shooting and promptly lands in the hospital. Upon release, he finds himself broke and unemployed. Hope soon crops up, however, in the form of Placard (Jean-Pierre Marielle), an ex-convict living in a scrap dump with a motley group of social outcasts -- all of whom welcome Bazil with warmth, compassion, and hospitality. Sure of his place for the first time in his life, Bazil joins forces with them to turn the dump into a lovely underground home, filled to the rafters with extraordinary inventions and sculptures. Soon after, the possibility of revenge against the munitions manufacturers responsible for Bazil's dad's death presents itself. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
- Starring:
- Dany Boon, André Dussollier, (more)
Audrey Tautou, who rose to international stardom with the title role in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's worldwide smash Amélie, reunites with the director for this drama, set during the darkest days of World War I and its immediate aftermath. Mathilde (Tautou) is a pretty but frail young women who was left with a bad leg after a childhood bout with polio. Mathilde lives in a small French village with her Aunt Bénédicte (Chantal Neuwirth) and Uncle Sylvain (Dominique Pinon), and is engaged to marry Manech (Gaspard Ulliel), the son of a lighthouse keeper who is fighting with the army near the German front. Manech is one of five soldiers who have been accused of injuring themselves in order to be sent home; in order to discourage similar behavior among their comrades, Manech and the other soldiers are sentenced to death, and the condemned men are marched into the no man's land between the French and German lines, where they are certain to be killed. Mathilde receives word of Manech's death, but in her heart she believes that if the man she loved had been killed, she would know it and feel it. Convinced he's still alive somewhere, Mathilde hires a private detective (Ticky Holgado) shortly after the end of the war, and together they set out to find the missing Manech. Jodie Foster appears in a supporting role as a Polish expatriate living in France. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Audrey Tautou, Gaspard Ulliel, (more)
One woman decides to change the world by changing the lives of the people she knows in this charming and romantic comic fantasy from director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Amelie (Audrey Tautou) is a young woman who had a decidedly unusual childhood; misdiagnosed with an unusual heart condition, Amelie didn't attend school with other children, but spent most of her time in her room, where she developed a keen imagination and an active fantasy life. Her mother Amandine (Lorella Cravotta) died in a freak accident when Amelie was eight, and her father Raphael (Rufus) had limited contact with her, since his presence seemed to throw her heart into high gear. Despite all this, Amelie has grown into a healthy and beautiful young woman who works in a cafe and has a whimsical, romantic nature. When Princess Diana dies in a car wreck in the summer of 1997, Amelie is reminded that life can be fleeting and she decides it's time for her to intervene in the lives of those around her, hoping to bring a bit of happiness to her neighbors and the regulars at the cafe. Amelie starts by bringing together two lonely people -- Georgette (Isabelle Nanty), a tobacconist with a severe case of hypochondria, and Joseph (Dominique Pinon), an especially ill-tempered customer. When Amelie finds a box of old toys in her apartment, she returns them to their former owner, Mr. Bretodeau (Maurice Benichou), sending him on a reverie of childhood. Amelie befriends Dufayel (Serge Merlin), an elderly artist living nearby whose bones are so brittle, thanks to a rare disease, that everything in his flat must be padded for his protection. And Amelie decides someone has to step into the life of Nino (Mathieu Kassovitz), a lonely adult video store clerk and part-time carnival spook-show ghost who collects pictures left behind at photo booths around Paris. Le Fabuleux Destin D'Amelie Poulain received unusually enthusiastic advance reviews prior to its French premiere in the spring of 2001, and was well received at a special free screening at that year's Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Audrey Tautou, Mathieu Kassovitz, (more)
Two centuries after Ellen Ripley's death, doctors aboard the space station Auriga clone her using a blood sample taken from Fiorna 161, in hopes of harvesting the queen embryo that was incubating inside of her when she was trapped on the remote penal planet. Finally succeeding after numerous attempts, they remove the alien and repair the clone for further study. Before long, the Ripley clone has gained consciousness, and displays superhuman capabilities that suggest it possesses alien DNA. When Ripley discovers that General Perez (Dan Hedaya) is keeping the queen in a heavily fortified room of the space station, she warns the military man and his scientists that the creature cannot be contained no matter how hard they try. Meanwhile, General Perez has hired a crew of space pirates to deliver the cryogenically frozen bodies of another ship to the Auriga so they can be used to breed more aliens. The leader of the pirates is Johner (Ron Perlman), a gruff mercenary who engages Ripley to no avail. When Call (Winona Ryder), one of Johner's crewmembers, admits that she was sent to assassinate Ripley, General Perez attempts to have the pirates executed. The result is a tense standoff between the pirates and the military men, with the aliens causing havoc after breaking free of their containment cells. Attempting a daring escape, Ripley and the pirates discover the lab where she was cloned before being forced to swim through the mess hall, which has been submerged in water during the aliens' escape. Discovering a carefully guarded secret about Call's past, Ripley attempts to convince her to alter the Auruga's course, which was set to Earth when the ship went into emergency mode. With the fate of mankind hanging in the balance, Ripley is captured by the aliens and taken to their nest, where she comes face to face with the mutated results of the scientists' experiments. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sigourney Weaver, Winona Ryder, (more)
This visually inventive French sci-fi/fantasy tale began winning a cult following practically from the moment it was released. Krank (Daniel Emilfork) is a foul, monstrous creature who lords over the inhabitants of a small island; Krank's emotional being is every bit as ugly as his physical personage, largely because he does not have the ability to dream. However, he has developed a machine that can drain the dreams of others from their heads, and he devotes himself to kidnapping children from a nearby harbor town so that he can steal their pleasant dreams. Denree (Joseph Lucien) is one of the children who has been spirited off to the island; Krank discovers that he's an even bigger problem than he imagined when his big brother One (Ron Perlman), a harpoon-wielding mountain of a man, sets out on a rescue mission. Once he arrives on Krank's island, One encounters a brain in a fish tank that has learned to talk, a group of clones who can't decide who is the original, a pair of Siamese twins, an octopus that guides a group of orphaned thieves, and a girl named Miette (Judith Vittet) who says she can guide One to Denree. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ron Perlman, Daniel Emilfork, (more)
A post-apocalyptic future becomes the setting for pitch black humor in this visually intricate French comedy. The action takes place within a single apartment complex, which is owned by the same man that operates the downstairs butcher shop. It's a particularly popular place to live, thanks to the butcher's uncanny ability to find excellent cuts of meat despite the horrible living conditions outside. The newest building superintendent, a former circus clown, thinks he has found an ideal living situation. All that changes, however, when he discovers the true source of the butcher's meat, and that he may be the next main course. This dark tale is played out in a brilliantly designed, glorious surreal alternate world reminiscent of the works of director Terry Gilliam, who co-presented the film's American release. Like Gilliam, co-directors Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro hail from an animation background, and have a fondness for extravagant visuals, absurdist plot twists, and a sense of humor that combines sharp satire with broad slapstick and gross-out imagery. This mixture may displease the weak of stomach, but those attuned to the film's sensibility will be delighted by the obvious technical virtuosity and wicked sense of humor. ~ Judd Blaise, Rovi
- Starring:
- Dominique Pinon, Marie-Laure Dougnac, (more)
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