I thought nothing could surprise me (which was pretty ignorant) until I’d seen this delightfully shocking film. I was one of the immature people up the front having a giggle fit over the latex-clad mating dance, during Monsier Oscar’s brief role as an action movie hero. Overall, I really enjoyed the film, and especially appreciated Dennis Lavant’s ability to slip into wildly different personas having mastered his characters physically.

Monsieur Oscar’s third appointment as an eccentric, galloping, leprechaun-like sewer dweller was the highlight of the film for me. As someone who thinks about death a little too often, I found his mocking of mortality refreshing and his child-like curiosity charming. The camera tracking “leprechaun man” through the cemetery, ravishing flowers neatly placed on gravestones is so socially unacceptable; I found it thrilling. To me it commented on our superficiality and obsession with beauty even after death. Stumbling upon a supermodel shoot as the photographer senselessly muttered “beauty, beauty, BEAUTIFUL” he disrupted something that we find so normal. The “ugly” sewer dweller to me who was “so weird”, made the press and conventional beauty of the model seem so wrong and artificial. I felt I could relate to him more than the “normal” people as he stared blankly at them.

The repetition of him so attentively putting on a face and a costume, becoming a character, then coming back looking exhausted and dissatisfied was the only constant through the narrative. (Along with the chain smoking and seemingly random plot twists.) The closest thing I can relate it to is a circular narrative, that gave the audience a structured experience.The line where the character he was “playing”, and the person he was, became almost nonexistent towards the end. It was like I know he’s an actor walking off stage, but I’m just not sure where the stage is. He progressively grew weary (drinking more and passing out), like with each person he became he lost pieces of himself. Small details also linked in pattern such as the use of wigs and cigarette smoking. I wasn’t able to develop any real expectations of the film as it covered a wide variety of genres (musical, fantasy, drama, action, horror, crime) I found myself engaged whether I was uncomfortable, shocked or pleased by the inventiveness.