War Machinery

Micmacs is Jeunet's latest and as usual it's filled with a panoply of oddbod characters and steampunk-y apparatus. Bazil, a video shop clerk, gets a bullet lodged in his brain and winds up on the streets only to be adopted by a gang of quirky rejects who live under a rubbish tip and it's not long before they decide to combine their talents to wreak revenge on the arms companies behind our hero's sorry predicament. What ensues is a charming comedic caper with a fine cast and more than a few barbs for the filthy arms trade. All in all another highly enjoyable half-fantasy from the director of City of Lost Children and Delicatessen.


Lebanon is a searing antiwar movie set predominantly in the claustrophobic confines of a tank during Israel's 1982 incursion into Lebanon. The strains of urban conflict soon take their toll on the mostly inexperienced squad in their sweaty vehicle and they find themselves marooned in a Syrian enclave. The film has an almost mythic feel to it as it switches between the inside of the tank and the carnage/mayhem outside as observed through the tanks gun sights but the excellent cast bring a desperate humanity to proceedings as it slowly builds to a frenzy of panic and confusion. A brilliant, nuanced, quite devastating anti-war movie, that's the perfect companion piece to Waltz With Bashir.