Duo Caro & Jeunet delight the audience of Le Zola in Villeurbanne

Posted on october 15, 2018

Slices of laughter, salivating questions: Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro and Dominique Pinon served up a menu of choice to the audience at the Zola during the screening of the cult film, “Delicatessen.” 

"Any cannibals in the room?” Director Marc Caro may not win the Lumière Award this year, but he certainly deserves a prize for the best first liner to introduce a screening. In front of the packed theater of Le Zola (Villeurbanne) on Sunday evening, the filmmaker offered a great feast to the audience, a (re)discovery of the cult movie “Delicatessen” on the big screen, co-directed by his sidekick, Jean-Pierre Jeunet.

© Institut Lumière / Sabine Perrin - Jean-Luc Mège

On the menu of the day for hungry moviegoers: a starter served up by the duo of directors and actor Dominique Pinon, who played the main character in this cinema jewel, released in 1991. "We were very lucky to be able to make this film. In Clichy, there is a film festival which could not exist today; I think “Delicatessen” falls in the same category. Just like “Amélie,” explains Jean-Pierre Jeunet. The filmmaker took the opportunity to pay tribute to the work of his faithful producer, Claudie Ossard, who made distribution of this first feature film possible by "signing a three-movie contract with UGC."

A few months later, oddity “Delicatessen” swept four Césars before landing on the Cannes Croisette. Twenty-seven years after its release, the Caro/ Jeunet movie is still on everyone's mind: "I was a teenager at the time of its theatrical release. I immediately liked the strangeness of the film. Everything impressed me: its peculiar universe, its theme and how it was directed," remembers Stéphane Sabatier, a fan of the ace duo. 

Icing on the cake: Zola moviegoers could enjoy the digital print of “Delicatessen,” restored by Jean-Pierre Jeunet himself. But before plunging into the bizarre and poetic everyday life of deli butchers, gourmet film fans were entitled to a word of culinary caution by Marc Caro, "I know you are meat lovers in Lyon, but it's still a pro-vegetarian film! Bon appétit!"

Laura Lépine