Micmacs (2009) on Netflix
A stray bullet lodges in the head of Bazil, a video shop clerk in Paris. Homeless, he joins scavengers under a mound of scrap, and they plot revenge on two arms dealers.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.1/1032,225 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes72%
Trailer
Plot summary
Bazil loses his father, a soldier killed by a landmine in the Western Sahara. Thirty years later, Bazil works in a Paris video rental shop and a stray bullet strikes him in the head. Doctors save his life but leave the bullet where it is. Out of work, he becomes a homeless busker until Slammer brings him to Tire-Larigots, a shelter carved beneath a mountain of scrap. There he meets Elastic Girl, Mama Chow, Remington, Buster, Tiny Pete and Calculator. Scavenging one day, Bazil finds the offices of the two firms that made the landmine and the bullet, facing each other across a street. He goes to one of them asking for compensation, and its CEO, Nicolas Thibault de Fenouillet, has him thrown out. His new companions agree to help him take revenge on both companies.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Micmacs (2009)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The film's music was written by Raphaël Beau, a school teacher with no prior professional recording or scoring experience. Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet loved Beau's cues but moved them to different scenes in the final cut.
- Jeunet planned an Amélie reference for the scene where Bazil lowers his microphone into a chimney, showing Amélie and Nino with crying children, but star Audrey Tautou was shooting Coco Before Chanel; the shot became an homage to Delicatessen instead.
- Elastic Girl's contortions were not digital effects: Julie Ferrier, who played her, is flexible and did some of the movement herself, while the hardest ones were performed by Julia Gunthel, known as Zlata, whom Jeunet discovered doing an erotic show in Germany.
- Jean-Pierre Jeunet wrote the part of Bazil for Jamel Debbouze, who left the project after three weeks over artistic and financial disagreements; the role went to Dany Boon.
- While developing the film, Jeunet toured arms manufacturing plants in Belgium, took some dialogue directly from interviews with arms dealers, and had the sabotaged machine in De Fenouillet's factory modelled exactly on one he saw in a real plant.
- The closeup of Dany Boon's face during Marconi's speech was out of focus when filmed, but Jeunet thought his performance so good that he had the face digitally focused instead of reshooting.
- De Fenouillet's first appearance in his office was built entirely in post-production from footage shot for a different scene: Bazil, Buster and Slammer were digitally removed from the frame, and De Fenouillet was given dialogue synchronised to the original lines.
