Le Magasin des suicides (2012)
Directed by Patrice Leconte

Film Review

It has long been acknowledged that Patrice Leconte is one of France's most eclectic filmmakers, as adept at turning out mainstream comedies such as Les Bronzés (1978) as more serious auteur dramas like La Veuve de Saint-Pierre (2000) and L'Homme du train (2002).  Now, at the tender age of 64, Leconte makes another unexpected detour with his first animated feature.  (The detour is less surprising when you recall that Leconte spent five years as an artist on the magazine Pilote in the early 1970s).  Adapted from a popular novel by Jean Teulé, Le Magasin des suicides is a morbid comedic fantasy which allows Leconte plenty of opportunity to indulge his penchant for dark humour.  Set in a world of interminable post-apocalyptic gloom, where everyone has long since lost the will to live and suicide has become the most popular pastime, no other film has come closer to matching the prevailing mood in France at the present time.  Indeed, a visitor to France today could almost mistake this for a documentary...

A great admirer of the films of Tim Burton, Leconte admits to having been partially influenced by the American director's comicbook-style Gothic fantasies.  Another obvious influence is the Stephen Sondheim musical Sweeney Todd, apparent in the numerous macabre musical numbers that are inelegantly crowbarred into the film.  Dissatisfied with the pessimistic ending to Tuelé's novel, Leconte serves up a far more upbeat conclusion, but does so with such an outpouring of tacky sentimentality that he pretty well destroys the film's integrity.  You can't help wondering who the film is targeted at.  Obviously a film in which violent self-inficted death features so prominently cannot be aimed at children; and yet the film is too timid and unsophisticated to be of much interest to an adult audience.  That just leaves the teen market, but surely most of today's teenagers are too busy killing things on their Play Stations to have the time for this kind of addled fantasy?

Technically at least, Le Magasin des suicides is an impressive piece, its 2D art work of a comparable quality to that seen in Sylvain Chomet's excellent Triplettes de Belleville (2003).  However, whereas the characters in Chomet's film are well developed and take on a personality of their own, those in Leconte's film are shallow caricatures that struggle to break out of their two-dimensional universe.  Leconte's film also has far less tonal variation than Chomet's and soon becomes monotonous and repetitive, something that is only aggravated by the abundance of musical numbers which end up sounding like muzak.  The twisted black comedy helps to carry the film through but it is surprising that such an experienced filmmaker as Leconte should fail to give it more depth and character.  Unsure what age group he is aiming the film at and not having the courage to stick with Jean Teulé's original concept, Leconte delivers a stylish curiosity piece that is moderately entertaining but a crushing disappointment for his admirers.

Film Synopsis

There once was a town so mired in misery that everyone who lived there no longer had the will to go on living.  In this gloomy metropolis, the only business that thrives is a little shop which specialises in suicide.  The shop is run by Mishima and Lucrezia Tuvache, whose offspring Vincent and Marilyn do their best to talk their customers into hastening their demise.  Far better to do away with yourself in the comfort of your own home, with a sturdy rope or a strong poison, than to create a public nuisance by jumping out of an upstairs window.  Life for the Tuvaches has never been so good.  This was before Alan, the latest addition to the family, came along.  No matter what his parents do to him, baby Alan cannot help lifting the spirits of anyone who sees him...