Delicatessen

"A futuristic comic feast."

1991 1h 39m FR

👍

7.3

SOLID

★7.3TMDB · 1,700

ComedyScience FictionFantasy

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

In a post-apocalyptic world, the residents of an apartment above the butcher shop receive an occasional delicacy of meat, something that is in low supply. A young man new in town falls in love with the butcher's daughter, which causes conflicts in her family, who need the young man for other business-related purposes.

“A futuristic comic feast.”

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Cast

Dominique Pinon
Louison
Marie-Laure Dougnac
Julie Clapet
Jean-Claude Dreyfus
Clapet
Karin Viard
Mademoiselle Plusse
Ticky Holgado
Marcel Tapioca
Pascal Benezech
Tried to Escape
Edith Ker
Grandmother
Rufus
Robert Kube

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Writers: Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Gilles Adrien, Marc Caro
Languages: French
Countries: France

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Shot for just $4.0M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Earned back only 45% of its budget on initial theatrical — a commercial disappointment on release.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

ERA

Did you know

35 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, shot by Darius Khondji. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Carlos D'Alessio. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Hervé Schneid shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Dominique Pinon and Marie-Laure Dougnac and Jean-Claude Dreyfus carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "A futuristic comic feast.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Jean-Pierre Jeunet directs. Darius Khondji behind the camera. Carlos D'Alessio scores. Hervé Schneid cuts. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. A commercial under-performer on release. Produced in France. Dialogue in French.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Shot for just $4.0M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.
2Earned back only 45% of its budget on initial theatrical — a commercial disappointment on release.
335 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.
4Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, shot by Darius Khondji. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Original score by Carlos D'Alessio. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
6Editor Hervé Schneid shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Dominique Pinon and Marie-Laure Dougnac and Jean-Claude Dreyfus carry the top of the cast.
8Marketing tagline: "A futuristic comic feast.".
9IMDB entry: tt0101700 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
10Classified under 14 themes, including "underground", "suicide attempt", "dystopia", "post-apocalyptic future".

The technical file

Cinematography: Darius Khondji
Original score: Carlos D'Alessio
Editing: Hervé Schneid
Production design: Miljen 'Kreka' Kljaković
Costume design: Valérie Pozzo di Borgo
Makeup / hair: Nathalie Champigny
Runtime: 99 min · 1h 39m
Status: Released
Budget: $4,000,000
Box office: $1,794,187
Return: 45% of budget
Original language: FR
Certification (US): R
IMDB: Delicatessen (1991)

Awards

Sitges Film Festival Best Actor award
Sitges Film Festival Best Director award
European Film Award for Best Production Designer

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Also by

Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

Community reviews

What people are saying

Filipe Manuel Neto2023-05-14
★ 4/10
French-style grotesque surrealism, in a film with style but no content. I think I got to know Jean-Pierre Jeunet in the same way as almost everyone who doesn't follow French cinema at the same time: through the film “Amelie”. The film brought the director international and is unanimously considered his greatest and most relevant work. Given how much I liked this movie, I decided to see this one, but my experience was different. If “Amelie” was magical and beautiful, this film is much more uninteresting. It was treated like a surreal nightmare: it's a story about a butcher who occasionally sells human flesh in a dystopian future. Regardless of how much I felt disgusted by the aesthetics adopted in the film and by its bizarre theme, there is no doubt that it was a work with notes of quality: the degradation of buildings and the environment symbolizes or synthesizes the degradation of morals and values. The cacophony of sounds and images, between the dreamlike and the grotesque, is purposeful and intense (for example, that moment when the sound of bed springs where a couple makes love mixes with the sounds of a girl practicing the cello or from another neighbor who paints the ceiling of his apartment). The director's marks of talent, the quality we saw in “Amelie” is here, but distorted and adapted to a much less sympathetic film project. The film has good actors and the performance of each of them helps the film to become a little more palatable. Dominique Pinon stood out the most: he knows how to balance between seriousness and hilarity, and has a body and facial expressiveness that is remarkable. Jean Claude Dreyfus also deserves a positive note, while Marie-Laure Dougnac doesn't seem to me to have anything relevant to do other than appear ethereal, diaphanous as a mirage. Being a film that cares more about style than content, it also presents us with a very sharp and stylized cinematography: I must say that I admired the camera angles and the filming work, quite original, but that I don't particularly like the color, where an ocher tone made the film excessively brown. And despite the efforts, the soundtrack is one of those innocuous elements, which neither enhances nor harms the film because it does not deserve our attention in a relevant way.
CinemaSerf2024-04-02
★ 7/10
I did really quite enjoy this film, but I'll be honest - half the time I had no idea what was going on! From the start I expected Steven Sondheim's "Mrs. Lovett" to be working on her pies downstairs, beneath the shop of "Clapet" (Jean-Claude Dreyfus). They all live in a France where food is very scarce and people have an habit of disappearing without trace! He also owns a rather dilapidated block of flats next door and he needs a janitor. Enter the poor, unsuspecting, "Louison" (Dominique Pinon) who needs a place to stay. He used to be a clown, but now the joke is very much on him as he meets the intimidating "Mlle. Plusse" (Karin Viard) and the escapades begin in earnest. To the chagrin of her father, he quickly falls in love with the daughter of the house "Julie" (Marie-Laure Dougnac) and in order to save their burgeoning romance, she has to seek the assistance of a subterranean section of society called the "Troglodytes" but more resembling a society of oilskin-clad moles. These folks live a scavengers life, ferreting around for grain and corn where they can find it. As "Louison" closes in on the secret of his employer, and his relationship with "Julie" becomes more serious, they must take to the bathroom and hope rescue comes before the hatchet falls a bit too close to home! I don't usually do surreal so well, but this is really quite an enjoyable farce of a film to watch. The characters - well, most of them, have just enough of an anchor in reality to keep it in this dimension; Dreyfus and his sidekick bring quite an entertaining hint of menace and there's a great scenes with Pinon and a knife through his head on a plate! Oddly enough, it does make more sense as it proceeds - it's just not always that obvious! Quirky and entertaining. Give it a go.