Vegetarian or not, this is a great film for everybody recovering from the excesses of Christmas.

“ As well as being an inventive and futuristic comedy, Delicatessen also functions as a fantasy version of the German occupation of France during the Second Word War. Unlike poetic realism, however, Delicatessen has a purely fantastical aesthetic, partly derived from comic strips, featuring crazy camera angles, facial contortions and bulging eyes, and a cast of bizarre minor characters, including a man who lives in a slime-filled room of snails and Aurore, a woman who keeps failing spectacularly in her suicide attempts.” Guy Austin, Contemporary French Cinema 1996

As always Jon Davies will be giving one of his illuminating talks to accompany the film. As he observes: “Austin draws attention to a key background element of this film. Set in a dark incomprehensible future, it harks back to the 1940s and 1950s with its colours, televisions and radios. But the film is much more than this. It is a flowering of Caro and Jeunet’s ideas and imagination that struck audiences as completely fresh and exhilarating. The sequence with the cello, bed, painter and bike pump has been often copied but I’ve never seen it bettered. Jeunet’s style may now be a lot more polished but he has stayed true to his aesthetic as we will see this afternoon.”

Plus, take the opportunity to see some of the Museumʼs remarkable collection, and to enjoy our excellent light refreshments!

This is one of our French Sundaes series of screenings with talks.

The event will end around 17.30.

Tickets & Pricing

French Sundaes ticketing applies.