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Printer-Friendly ModeFrench film series ends with a quirky finalé
April 11, 2011 —
Nonstop shenanigans caught the interest of viewers and filled the room with laughter in the final film of this semester’s French film series, “Micmacs.”
“Micmacs” is the story of Bazil who has had his life ruined by weapons of war. He was shot in the head by a stray bullet from a nearby shootout, and his father was killed by a landmine in Morocco.
Bazil loses his job and home, and wanders the streets until meeting Slammer, who introduces him to a group of eccentric junkyard dealers. When Bazil finds the two weapons manufacturers responsible for building the weapons that destroyed his life, he builds a plan for revenge that his newfound family helps set in motion.
“I thought it was really funny,” said Dana Schieding, elementary education freshman. “And very different from what an American film is like.”
Schieding especially enjoyed the scene were Bazil and his friends were spying on the president of one of the weapons companies.
“My favorite part was when the bad guy was in his office and turned on his webcam so that he could see the people outside cleaning the window spying on him.” she said. “And they pretended that they couldn’t see through the glass.”
Anna Krause, nursing sophomore, agreed.
“I thought it was kind of quirky,” Krause said. “It was funny and different.”
Krause’s favorite part of the movie was when Bazil and his friends tricked the leaders of both companies at the end of the film into thinking they were taken to Africa for revenge.
“I liked it when they tricked them at the end,” she said. “I really thought they they took them somewhere.”
“Micmacs” was the final film of the series, which featured work from Jean- Pierre Jeunet including “Amélie” and “A Very Long Engagement.”
Of the films presented, “Amélie” is the favorite of Julie Foss, assistant professor of modern foreign languages.
“Amélie” is my favorite because it’s the first film that I saw,” she said. “And it lead to my interest in Jeunet’s films that were featured in the series.”
The film series has had an average turnout of around 10 people per film, which doesn’t seem like a lot, but Foss said that even fewer showed up to films at MSU, which has a much larger student population, and she is happy with the turnout.
Foss is also pleased to see that people have shown interest in watching films from another culture.
“It’s good to see that people are open minded to seeing French films,” she said. ”And are actually enjoying them.”
The film series will continue in the fall and winter semesters with the showing of comedies one semester and biopics for the other.
“Everyone likes to laugh,” Foss said, “so I figured that comedies would be a nice addition to the film series.”
Biopics, or biographical films, have gained popularity in France, which is the reasoning behind showing them in the film series.
The dates, times and order of the films will be announced later.