The idea of Jean-Pierre Jeunet first film DELICATESSEN being released in 4K, was to me, a thing of beauty. I have had a dusty DVD for years and hoped to upgrade. The check disc came, I put it in and watched. With a smile and a frown. The smile was for the 4K, that we all hoped would enrapture the images. The frown for the real lack of extras above and beyond the old discs offer.

So to DELICATESSEN. We are in the apocalyptic future of France. Society has reached collapsed and food is the only real form of finance. Meat and good quality meat at that, is as rare as hens teeth. Unemployed clown Louison (Dominique Pinon) finds work as a maintenance man. His work in the apartment block situated above a butcher’s shop, is neither essential as the place is falling down or not important. But as he works at falling in love with the butchers daughter, he begins to unveil the truth behind the ominous landlord’s unsavoury intentions for his tenants. As they continue to disappear, he befriends a group of subterranean militia for the vegetarian freedom fighters. Can they stop the carnage? Or maybe free the sewers of that stench?

Jeunet film is as fun and sardonic as ever. It has a mixture of absurdist comedy, surreal imagery and brutal gallows humour. It is as important as it is stand out in many ways. This said, it is not given much to work with extras wise. I will say no more on this. However, the 4K has done a job and more on the stunning mise en scene. For a time you feel like you are swimming in rich colours and subtlety is gone. Bang, crash, smash the colours in the exteriors go. Even the sewers and butcher shop scenes are rich and capture the warm of the space. Even if its a shit filled hell hole. The interiors do required (or did for me) a little brightness shifting, as they are a little over lit. Harsh to be honest. The whole upscale, has taken the best bits of the film. It has become quite amped up in the surreal and this all plays into the work, rather then subtract from it.

Shame about the extras really…