Metacritic reviews

I didn't need to understand every word to see what a beautiful film this was - each camera shot a carefully composed masterpiece that immerses the viewer in a realm of luxuriant imagination.

Delicatessen is an ingeniously funny film with a surprisingly sweet romance at its center.

The slapstick is classic-level stuff, the kind of domino-effect precision that is lost in most of today's clumsy farces.

Beautifully textured, cleverly scripted and eerily shot (often with a wideangle lens making characters look even weirder), Delicatessan is a zany little film that's a startling and clever debut for co-helmers Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro.

Set in some sort of post-apocalyptic Parisian deli o' the damned, this lunatic's take on the future of man is so delightfully warped that it's impossible to shake it out of your head and go get a decent night's sleep.

What keeps the film going, and helps it keep its comic tone, is the constant threat of cataclysm - and the deadpan Buster Keaton charm of the ever-responsive Pinon as he combats the giant Rube Goldberg meat-grinder that the house, in effect, is. [17 Apr 1992]

This is still a delightfully original picture, poised perfectly between farce and horror.

Among the things that deserve mention in this lightweight but sometimes subversively stylish farce are its ingenious credit sequence, its lively editing by Herve Schneid, its use of code names like Artichoke Heart and Cordon Bleu in the guerrilla war that rages underground and its reference to a couple of odd inventions.

Delicatessen seems overstuffed at times, unable to digest its own surfeit of jokes, tricks, and surprises.

There are no characters to care about or remember afterward - just a lot of flashy technique involving decor, some glib allegorical flourishes, and the obligatory studied film-school weirdness.