The City of Lost Children (1995)

**A visual spectacle with an irritating story that doesn't justify the time spent watching the film.** I loved – like almost everyone else – “Amelie” and I didn't particularly like “Delicatessen”. However, I didn't give up on Jean Pierre Jeunet and decided to see this film. I confess that I was impressed by the visual quality, but this is practically a trademark of the director, who seems to have a particular predilection for the color green (it was quite evident in Amelie, and in this film it was once again the dominant color of the chromatic palette). However, it returns to being, as “Delicatessen” had been, a rather strange, depressing and bizarre film. More bizarre than some Tim Burton movies, which isn't easy. In view of what has been described above, I think it will not be surprising if I say that it is a film that is basically based on visual and special resources. There's immense visual effort here, and there's no doubt that Jeunet is behind it. The cinematography is very good, with an excellent filming work, and the sets deserve our attention. The costumes were designed by Jean Paul Gautier, so they're practically haute couture (with all the oddities that usually implies) and the soundtrack does a good job, too. The cast is quite complete, and the characters are complicated and difficult to understand. I can even say that some characters look like caricatures or things out of Coney Island, from some freak show. I liked, however, the effort made here by Dominique Pinon, one of the great French actors of our time. He doesn't play just one character, but a legion of clones. I also liked Ron Perlman, he's good for this type of film, but honestly, I feel that the actor wasn't comfortable either with his role or with the material he was given. I don't know to what extent the language barrier was actually the cause of that, but it was the feeling I got. The film is, essentially, a depressing and decadent futuristic dystopia, where a long-deranged scientist kidnaps children to steal their dreams. The basis of the plot is somewhat reminiscent of “The Island of Dr. Moreau”. Then we have a duo of Siamese twins who make up the main villains, and behave in an absolutely bizarre way, and a strong man who decides to go in search of his younger brother, kidnapped like many others, in the company of a girl who will help you. However, everything else is extraordinarily complicated. It seems that the script didn't get the attention it deserved: there are parts that are very underwritten, points that don't make any sense, strange twists that seem to happen just to make everything even more strange and out of the ordinary. As a story told, it's an irritating and worthless movie.

The basic premiss of this film is really quite simple. "Krank" (Daniel Emilfork) is super-bright, slightly deranged and lonely. He lives on a remote oil rig with only whom he can manufacture for companionship. His biggest problem is that he cannot dream. Without them he will die. He must, therefore, obtain as many other people's dreams as he can. To that end he constructs an entire community of one-eyed servants, a brain that lives in tank feeding on Alka Seltzer and some clones that are all led by the diminutively menacing "Martha" (Mireille Mossé). This "family" might have made "Dr. Moreau" proud. He hopes that they will help to collect enough kids to perpetuate his immortality. The thing is, all those he does manage to collect are nightmares because the children he kidnaps are all petrified of him. He needs some nice ones! Meantime, his army of robotic creations alight on "Denree" (Joseph Lucien) without reckoning on his determined strongman brother "One" (Ron Perlman) who is determined to fetch him back. He duly travels to their offshore structure and aided by the feisty "Miette" (Judith Vittet) and a lot of green wool, sets about trying to rescue his little brother - and all the others trapped in the installation - and to make sure that "Krank" and his hoodlums plunder no more. Emilfork is on great form as the archetypal mad scientist and Dominique Pinon looks like he's having great fun as the clones who do their masters's bidding whilst injecting some silly humour. There's an hybrid of stories here - part "Frankenstein", part "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" with costumes eccentrically designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier, and it does rather meander at times - but this is a film about it's look and it's sheer imagination. It's as if someone had allowed Messrs. Caro and Jeunet unfettered access to the props department at MGM or Universal and told them to use what they can. They have the imagination of a child and boy do they use it. Mechanical gadgets, gizmos, green mists, dense fog. You name it and these allow the whole thing to imbue us with a sense of a playful, dark, adventurousness. It's comedic at times, threatening at others and there's a surprisingly effective chemistry between the usually wooden Perlman and his juvenile co-star Vittet that helps anchor the fantasy. It's surreal and gorgeous to watch and you'll need to suspend your expectations of linear, structured, cinema if you are to enjoy it. It's unique and creative. Probably a bit "bonkers" too!