Visionary French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet has talked to STV about his new movie Micmacs at its UK premiere which opened the Glasgow Film Festival, and explained how he’d like to make another movie in English - as long as he can be guaranteed the freedom he enjoys in his home country.
Responsible for Delicatessen and surprise international blockbuster Amelie, Micmacs is his first movie since 2005’s A Very Long Engagement.
During that period he worked for two years on an adaptation of novel Life of Pi which didn’t work out because of budgetary issues. Despite those frustrations his latest work is full of the director's signature comedy moments and his trademark fantastical schemes and concepts.
Jeunet said of Micmacs: “I wanted to make a kind of cartoon, a slapstick, but on the other hand it’s about weapon sellers. So it’s a serious issue, but it’s supposed to be funny, like The Great Dictator from Charlie Chaplin.
“It’s also a story of revenge, because I’m a big fan of Once Upon a Time in the West.”
The movie follows Bazil (Dany Boon) and a gang of misfits who team up in an elaborate plot to exact revenge upon two arms manufacturing companies - one responsible for the landmine which killed Bazil’s father, and the other responsible for the bullet still lodged in his brain.
Dominique Pinon has been a mainstay of Jeunet’s movies though has had to suffer some indignities on the way - and in Micmacs was thrown into a river for his troubles.
Jeunet said of the potentially traumatic experience for Pinon: “We had to give him some shots against rat’s pee, you know.”
Though the bulk of his movies have been French speaking he did direct Alien: Resurrection and was offered the chance to helm the fifth Harry Potter film, which he reportedly turned down. So would he do an English-speaking movie again, possibly returning to Hollywood?
Jeunet replied: “Yes, why not, but I love the freedom and in France I have the complete freedom, though I would like to find the compromise between American actors and French freedom.”
- Micmacs is released nationwide on Friday February 26
