Delicatessen

Post-apocalyptic cannibal comedies don't usually become international cinema classics, but that's exactly what happened with Delicatessen, the first feature film by the French writing/directing team of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro. Set in a bleak unspecified future where food is scarce, the movie winds its way through the pipes and the living spaces of a run-down apartment building where the landlord (Jean-Claude Dreyfus) also works as a butcher with a tendency for making meals out of new tenants. While this is a plot ready-made for a horror flick, Jeunet and Caro, brandishing a keen sense of absurdity, turn the retro-futuristic story into a surrealist Brothers Grimm fairy tale. From its tense opening, where a justifiably terrified target tries to escape by disguising himself as trash, to its piece de resistance--a hilariously risqué apartment-hopping sequence involving bouncing bedsprings, slapstick ceiling painting, somber string playing, and more--Delicatessen operates entirely on its own terms. Oh, and the heroes of this oddity? They would be an out-of-work circus clown (rubber-faced Jeunet regular Dominique Pinon) and a mousey cellist (Marie-Laure Dougnac), who are aided, naturally, by black-clad vegetarian guerilla fighters. If this doesn't sound like your cup of, well, stew, then it probably isn't, but those open to sampling Jeunet and Caro's gleefully bizarre concoction are in for an unforgettable treat.