Chez les mangeurs d'hommes: A dusty, weird trip

Is it worth your time?

Honestly? Only if you’re the type of person who digs through archives to see how movies were glued together back when the medium was still learning to walk. If you want a smooth, modern experience, look elsewhere. People who love historical oddities will find plenty to squint at, but everyone else? Probably just going to be bored or a little uncomfortable. 🎞️

There is a real, heavy stillness to Chez les mangeurs d'hommes. It doesn’t move like a story; it moves like a collection of staged curiosities. You can feel the camera operator trying to capture 'the wild' while everyone is standing around like they’re waiting for the bus.

The texture of the thing

There’s this one sequence—I think it’s near the middle—where the framing gets all wonky. The actors seem to be looking at something just out of frame, maybe a director shouting directions or a stray dog. It’s deeply distracting, but also kind of charming in a 'we have no idea what we’re doing' sort of way.

It’s not as polished as The Merry Widow, obviously, but it has that same desperate need to be seen. You can tell they were trying to sell a certain vision of the world, even if that vision was mostly made up of bad sets and overacting.

• The costumes look like they were pulled from a lost-and-found bin.
• The pacing? It’s nonexistent. It just stops when it feels like it.
• André-Paul Antoine is trying his best, I guess.

Watching this made me think of Le chiffonnier de Paris, mainly because both films feel like they belong in a trunk in an attic. There’s a specific kind of grain to the film stock that makes everything look like it’s underwater.

The whole 'cannibal' angle feels so staged it’s almost funny. It’s like watching a high school play where the kids didn't bother to memorize their lines. But you can’t look away. There’s something about the sheer audacity of the premise that keeps you watching, even when nothing is actually happening.

It’s not a good movie. It’s not even a particularly interesting one, really. But it exists. And for a few minutes, you’re stuck in 1920s-something, wondering why anyone thought this was a good idea to put on screen. 🤷‍♂️