The 1st time I saw this movie I was really disappointed. Across the board anyone who was expecting another Amélie was probably let down. Even fans of Jeunet's early work (City of Lost Children, Delicatessen) probably ranked this as a lesser work. Fast forward a few years... I've since taken a deep dive into the classic masters of French film, particularly Jacques Tati, and now upon rewatching Micmacs I get it. So many scenes were really Tatiesque in their visual humor. Comparing this movie to Tati's masterpiece Playtime you can see the same approach, almost as if it's a silent film but at a whole new level with a barrage of subtle gags and intricate details all over the screen. Stuff you're not meant to catch without repeated viewings.

Jeunet himself mentions that the airport scene was a direct homage to Tati, and I can see it now. Human chaos within a rigidly symmetrical environment. But it's not outright chaos, there's a flow and a current to everything. In that respect, all the train station scenes (I think there are at least 4) are really reminiscent of Playtime's corporate office scenes. In other scenes Jeunet talks about his & Dany Boon's big influence Charlie Chaplin who influenced Tati as well. The taxi scene where Boon is miming to the soup lady is a great example of that Chaplin/Tati silent visual humor.

One thing Jeunet does which Tati avoided, or didn't have the technology to do, was to have a very dynamic camera with pans, dollys, cranes and complex axis twirls. Notice how rarely Jeunet cuts to different cameras; he uses just 1 even in conversations where a 2-camera edit would be the usual choice. In this situation Tati would use a static camera, long lens, at a distance to capture everything at once. Instead Jeunet uses a short lens and keeps it close, catching all the action with a slow, circular motion that pegs the various speakers and points of action without any cuts. On a technical level this is a masterpiece that shows the spirit of classic French cinema isn't dead. But I had to learn classic French cinema before I got it.