REVIEW: THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN (1995)

[Eric Brochu]

THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN
A film review by Eric Brochu
Copyright 1996 Eric Brochu

Starring: Ron Perlman, Judith Vittet, Daniel Emilfork,
Dominique Pinon
Directed by: Marc Caro (artistic director) and Jean-
Pierre Jeunet


A circus strong-man named One breaks chains with the
power of his lungs. A street preacher proclaims the
wonders of entering a cult whose members ritually blind
themselves. A greasy, opium-smoking assassin with a soft
heart turns people into murderous zombies with flea-
delivered drug injections. A group of clones sing a
birthday song to a disembodied brain in a glass tank.

Welcome to the bizarre world of _The City of Lost
Children_, a stunning fantasy film from Jean-Pierre
Jeunet and Marc Caro, the makers of the widely-acclaimed
darkest-of-dark comedy _Delicatessen_. If you've seen
_Delicatessen_, you probably have some idea of what to
expect from these brilliantly imaginative French
filmmakers, and while I'm not sure it ultimately holds
together as well as _Delicatessen_ does, _The City of
Lost Children_ more than makes up for it in terms of
sheer imaginative power.

The setting of the film is a port city somewhere in a
never-never land equal parts Dickensian London, prewar
Paris, and drug-induced hallucination. The carnival
barker announcing the strongman's show is stabbed, and
when the strongman and his three-year-old brother return
home that night, they are attacked by members of a child-
stealing cult known as the Cyclopes, who blind themselves
and wear brass eyepieces to see electronically. The
strongman, One (Ron Perlman) gives chase but loses the
gang. The Cyclopes, it turns out, are stealing the
children for the twisted Krank (Daniel Emilfork), who
cannot have dreams of his own, and is forced to subsist
on the stolen dreams of children.

Krank is the creation of a scientist who has now
disappeared, and he lives on a strange offshore
laboratory with the scientist's other creations: a
ruthless midget "princess" (Mireille Mosse); Uncle Ervin
(voiced by Jean-Louis Trintignant), a disembodied,
migraine-ridden brain, kept in a glass tank from which he
speaks through a pair of Victrola-style speakers; and six
dim-witted, narcoleptic clones (all played by Dominique
Pinon), one of whom is convinced he is the original from
which the others were made.

The Cyclopes trade One's little brother to the clones for
some of the electronic eyewear and ultra-sensitive
hearing aids. Meanwhile, One, searching for his brother,
runs into Miette (Judith Vittet), a member of a band of
child-thieves working for a pair of villainous Siamese
twin sisters (Genevieve Brunet and Odile Mallet). Miette
gets One to help in a safe-cracking operation (he
staggers out of the building with the massive safe in a
wonderfully choreographed escape sequence), but then
leaves her fellow criminals behind to join One in his
search for his brother.

I won't spoil the movie for you by detailing the twists
and turns the plot takes and the other delightfully
strange characters Miette and One run into, but rest
assured they do meet up with Krank and his fellow
experiments in a climax that is alternately hair-
raisingly creepy and gut-bustingly funny.

_The City of Lost Children_ opens with a dream sequence.
It's Christmas, from a small child's point of view.
Santa Claus comes down the chimney, smiling and cherubic,
and bearing delightful toys. Then another comes down the
chimney. Then another, and another, and pretty soon the
room is filled with Santas, some engaging in most un-
Santa-like behavior. A reindeer relieves itself on the
floor. The child starts to bawl its head off, and the
dream sequence ends. This scene sets the feel of the
film that follows. _The City of Lost Children_ is
littered with dark humour and oddball sight gags. It is
often hilarious, but there is a menacing atmosphere to
many of the jokes. Many of the sight gags involve the
deformities of the characters; when one of the Siamese
twins takes a puff on her cigarette, for example, the
other coolly exhales. Others involve oddly mechanical
situations: one memorable scene involves a flying tear
which sets of a chain of events that leads to the
collision of a spectacularly massive ship. The humour is
imaginative and unapologetically idiosyncratic, and not
for those who don't like their laughs mixed with a touch
of dementia lurking somewhere nearby.

Caro and Jeunet have made the film a phenomenal visual
experience, full of striking imagery. It is beautifully
shot by Darius Khondji (_Seven_), who uses unconventional
camera angles and wide-angle lenses to bring Marc Caro's
artistic vision to life. Caro's wonderfully
claustrophobic sets create a permeating sense of
impending menace throughout the film: brick walls and
fire-escapes have never looked so eerie. Even the actors
look perfect for the film. Perlman's misshapen, but
warm, features and impressive physique suit his kindly
muscleman perfectly; as Krank, Emilfork is impeccably
haggard and twisted; and Vittet, a strikingly pretty
child with long black hair and unflinching countenance,
looks simultaneously innocent and world-weary.

While many Hollywood fantasies look either unimpressively
pedestrian or get caught up in a series of over-designed,
under-imagined spectacles that beg for the chance to awe
you with their budgets, _The City of Lost Children_
manages to strike a perfect balance between dreamlike
surrealism and real-world reference points. There are
very few films that can match _The City of Lost Children_
in the sheer power of its imagery, which I'm sure will
stay with me for weeks. Whether it's the sight of Uncle
Evrin, the disembodied brain, wheeling towards an
elevator at breakneck speed or Miette and One in a
rowboat drifting through a fog-shrouded field of giant,
floating mines, the images are consistently beautiful,
strange and compelling. It is easily one of the finest
examples of Expressionist filmmaking on this side of the
silent era. In short, the film looks fantastic, in both
senses of the word.

_The City of Lost Children_ also features first-class
acting. Ron Perlman, Dominique Pinon, and Daniel
Emilfork are all real pleasures to watch, and they all
look like they're having a great time. The real find,
though is Judith Vittet. I don't know how old she was
when she made this film (she looks about ten), but she
does a great job in a difficult, if somewhat cliched,
role as a streetwise child who has built up a tired,
cynical facade to mask her loneliness. It is to her
credit, and those of the other child actors, that they
are never typical Hollywood kids; they are not
wisecracking miniature adults or panderingly cute
annoyances: they are people, and Miette and her fellow
thieves are the most human characters of the film. The
filmmakers have obvious sympathies towards the children
without making them into a transparently nostalgic vision
of what an adult filmmaker _thinks_ kids in a film should
be.

Alas, _The City of Lost Children_ isn't perfect, though
its weaknesses are far from fatal. Most notably, the
film sometimes gets bogged down in its imagination and
uses gorgeous imagery where plot might have been more
satisfying in the long run. The Cyclops cult, for
example, is marvelously costumed and suitably oddball in
behavior and belief, but while they are central early in
the film, they disappear completely in the second half,
without any kind of resolution. They're never even
mentioned: you're just left to wonder about them.
Similarly, the explanation of what, exactly, Krank is
doing when he steals childrens' dreams is so vague it
simply left me scratching my head, which is quite
unfortunate, as Krank's dreams are pivotal in the film's
climax.

These criticisms, however, are tiny compared to the
unique experience of seeing this exciting, funny, stylish
film. I rarely watch a movie a second time without a
long period in-between, but I went to _The City of Lost
Children_ two nights in a row. The second time, I knew
what was going to happen, so I just sat back and let the
images wash over me, and I enjoyed it even more.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure the dark splendor of _The
City of Lost Children_ will survive being shrunk to fit
on a TV screen; this is the kind of film that must be
seen in the theater to really be appreciated on the level
its creators intend. Fortunately, I suspect it will
become a staple of repertoire and "art house" theaters.
If you have an opportunity to see this film in a theater,
don't hesitate to do so. Magic like this doesn't come by
every day.