French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet is a builder of worlds. For each of his projects, he imagines a universe that may not be all that different than our own yet is touched by some degree of magic, or at least a series of unlikely coincidences that add up to something majestic. His most celebrated works include Amélie and A Very Long Engagement, and his most recent French-language film, the underrated Micmacs, echoes the same sense of wonder and creativity. Returning with his first film in almost a decade, Bigbug shifts his lens to the future to offer a typically inventive and eccentric story absolutely bursting with vivid color.
It’s the year 2050, and robots are everywhere. That includes types of house robots that operate as vacuum cleaners or as human-looking androids, and the terrifying Yonyx, the latest technology that may believe they are better off without the humans who helped to create them. One man’s visit with his new fiancée to his ex’s home while her new boyfriend and his son are there leads to an unexpected and inescapable confinement, where the house robots have deemed the danger of being outside so high that the humans must be kept inside for their own safety.
Like Micmacs, this is a true ensemble piece, one that features great supporting players and makes use of a few Jeunet regulars, including André Dussollier and a performer who has appeared in all of his films, Dominique Pinon. The humans aren’t the only characters, since the robots that live within the house also have personalities that show through even with their monotone voices. As the humans panic about what may befall them, the robots are united in a singular aim, to figure out what they can do in order to feel and perhaps even become human.
This is clearly meant as a parody of the direction in which the world is headed, best expressed with a flying advertisement that shows up to hover outside the house in awkward moments, offering a particular person a subscription to a service that provides comebacks or suggesting highly unhelpful long-term solutions for others problems of varying seriousness that must be solved instantaneously. The TV also frequently turns on a disturbing sitcom called Homo Ridiculus where the Yonyx lead humans around on leashes as if they are animals. Who the audience for such programming is remains a mystery, but it’s an unsubtle and deeply unsettling sign of how the increasingly powerful Yonyx view the human race.
The poster for the film, above, perfectly encapsulates its tone. A collection of people who aren’t really primed to get along or to spend a lot of time together are confined in an enclosed space and forced to reckon with the potential that they will never be allowed to leave, with the threat of the emotionless and omniscient Yonyx lurking outside. Watching these humans move on their hamster wheels trying to figure a way out is very much like a version of Homo Ridiculus for the film’s audience, taking some twisted delight in hoping that our world never ends up like this and still being able to laugh while that’s not the case.
Jeunet leaves his mark on every part of this film, from his selection of a superb ensemble to the production design by frequent collaborator Aline Bonetto that makes the furniture and walls in the home feel just as alive as the humans are and as the robots want to be. Jeunet works repeatedly with the same artisans, and for good reason, since they seem to truly understand how to support his remarkable vision. There are so many intriguing, upsetting, peculiar, and mind-boggling ideas packed into under two hours in this extremely entertaining film, and the energy of the script and its performers is matched by the technical competence of everyone working with this masterful auteur.
Grade: B+
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-sWlgFhUGo
Bigbug is now streaming on Netflix.