Jean-Pierre Jeunet after his talk at Federation Hall, VCA 04.03.2010. Photo: Julie Clarke 
Jean-Pierre Jeunet with Adam Eliott (Director of Mary and Max) outside Federation Hall, VCA. Photo: Julie Clarke 2010He stepped onto the stage, threw his up arms in the air and said in a very broad French accent - 'What do you want to know?' After he was introduced to the one hundred or so people present, he stood up, turned his back to the audience and took his own photo with a small digital camera. It was a cheeky introduction to this man who has presented pathos and ethos, tragedy and comedy in all of his films.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Director of the films: Delicatessen (1991), The City of Lost Children (1995), Alien Resurrection (1997), Amelie (2001), A Very Long Engagement (2004) and his recent Micmacs a tire-larigot (2009) was in conversation this morning with Richard Sowada (Head of Film Programs at ACMI) at Federation Hall, VCA. The photograph I took of Jeunet shortly after I met him, appears to so thoroughly depict the man's personality - well at least on the surface. He could almost be a parody of one of his characters - he's quirky, funny and above all, incredibly serious. Passionate about everything he does, he admitted to working seven days a week when film-making - no weekends off, but he swims in the mornings and writes in the evenings. With all his devotion to getting the film right, he recalls being quite depressed after watching Alien Resurrection and making a list of all the mistakes he'd made. When Sowada asked him what was the first on the list, Jeunet declined to give an answer.
It's not surprising that Jeunet wanted to make Amelie, which he had been working on for tweleve years, rather than Alien Resurrection, indeed when he asked why he was selected, rather than the many excellent directors that America already had, the response was they liked his ideas, after all The City of Lost Children had had positive world-wide reaction receiving a nomination in 1995 for the Best Foreign Film. Jeunet accepted the proposition, dropped everything and flew to America two days later. I'm still at a loss as to how he actually directed the film, since he couldn't speak English. His had no problems today, however, having said that he was having some difficulty with the Australian accent and several times when questions were posed from the audience he lent towards his interpreter who paraphrased the idea.
Although Sowada appeared more concerned at least in the first half of the conversation with Jeunet's early films and the relationship he had with the French film industry, Jeunet kept veering the conversation towards his own special interests, such as his use of actors with unique and different faces. Sowada noted that there appeared to be an affinity between Jeunet's films and those of the American comedic silent film-maker Buster Keaton. Jeunet agreed that he was influenced to a certain degree by Keaton, but was also influenced to some degree by comic books - an influence that would emerge again in his latest film Micmacs.
Jeunet was unapologetic about the fact that he used the French actors, Dominique Pinon (who has appeared in all of Jeunet's films) and Ron Perlman in his films and conceded that he was much happier making films in his own language, rather than in English.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet was a delight to watch with his persistent gesticulations and energetic responses. I was lucky to not only meet him, but also spoke briefly with Adam Eliott, the Australian animator and director of the exquisitely wonderful Claymation - Mary and Max. It was purely by accident that I caught these two directors in the same place at the same time, both deal with difference in ways that I find extremely interesting. I've already got my ticket to see Micmacs, which is being screened as part of the French Film Festival next week.
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