Chris Navin

Full piece here.

‘One of the peculiarities of our age is the ferocity with which intellectuals and politicians defend propositions that they do not—because they cannot—believe to be true, so outrageous are they, such violence do they do to the most obvious and evident truth. Agatha Christie (a far greater psychologist than Sigmund Freud), drew attention almost a century ago to the phenomenon when she had Dr. Sheppard, the protagonist and culprit of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd say, “It is odd how, when you have a secret belief of your own which you do not wish to acknowledge, the voicing of it by someone else will rouse you to a fury of denial. I burst immediately into indignant speech.”

Some say ‘Delicatessen’, with its 156 minute run-time, is a slog. Three hours of film cut down from eight, taking place entirely within a midday Parisian deli, can be a bit much. Half-heard conversations. A 13 minute single-shot discussion of death, children and cheese.

Others say no modern work illuminates as many centuries of French history, family tensions and socio-economic struggles as does this modern French classic.

***Auteur theory: New Wave theory holds that the two female protagonists are simply puppets for Clement Barreau’s own failed marriages, disgraced career as a pop-signer, and his desire to ‘burn down the Sorbonne and stand like Napoleon within’.

After Clement Barreau’s infamous 1967 Dakar rally accident, his body was returned to Paris from the colonial deserts.

C’est la vie, mon ami…