The City of Lost Children
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Movie Reviews of The City of Lost Children
Movie Review: Homebrewer
Summary: 5 Stars
The City of Lost Children gets two platinum stars and also moves up to one of my top ten favorite films of all time. This is a confusing story, from beginning to end it expands your mind, reaches into your nightmares, and creates a story that is part Dark City and part of a novel called "The Golden Compass" by Phillip Pullman.
Yes, this film was everything and more. Not only visually beautiful, but the creative and symbolic meaning of the actions and words of the characters are "jaw dropping". Also, there are so many sub-stories in this film that reminded me of the style that Run Lola Run was done. This is the style that due to a connection of unrelated events something extraordinary happens. Let me give you an example from this film: There is a scene where the girl and One (Ron Pearlman-also a very biblical name) are trying to escape from the two women who want their jewels. There are events that lead from a dog finding its female companion to a boat almost hitting/splitting the women in half. Wild coincidences...imagine this times ten, and you have this film.
Keep in mind this is a French film with English subtitles, so you are not only getting the true voice of the film, but seeing the darkness of the cinematography without any American input. This really shows the purpose behind making this film, it really takes you to a new place so dark and dreamlike that you the viewer actually feel like you are in the picture itself. A movie about dreams and nightmares that takes place in a world of dreams and nightmares.
The story centres around a mad scientist, Krank, who is unable to dream, because of this he is aging quickly and is old beyond his year. He grows insane and has developed a technique to view and capture children's dreams so he can thereby inject them into his own mind. He kidnaps children from the nearby village and brings them to his lair, a king of oilrig in the middle of surrounding sea. He is aided by his brothers who are four identical clones of each other, unfortunately they all suffer from narcolepsy. Krank himself is a clone. His father who created them is now merely a brain in a tank and Krank was an unfortunate mistake who doesn't dream. The only clone who was right is an enigma called the original who has long since escaped the insanity of this evil lair only to be living underwater and is kind of an insane junk collector. One day strong man, One (Ron Perlman), and his little brother are ambushed by Krank's men and One's little brother is kidnapped. Thus far Krank's captives have proved unsuccessful in his quest for a cure, because they all suffer terrible nightmares, partly due to his own nastiness. All One's little brother responds to is food, he seems to have no fear and it seems he could be the one, just as long as Krank keeps feeding him. One sets out on a quest to find his brother meeting Miete, a young a troublesome orphan girl in the process. It's all good fun this film and while the story is simplistic it's a kind of delightfully Grimm fairytale sort of story that keeps your interest.
The cast are great. Ron Perlman is one of those cult actors who everyone seems to like and he has hit it big with the recent success Hellboy. He is a strong presence and unlike many musclemen of his stature he can act, something which has held him back somewhat,is because people have never really cast him as a leading action man, although in truth he's not blessed with good looks. The interestingly named Rufus, a Juenet stalwart is also very good with the clones, while Daniel Emilfork is excellent as Crank. Also good and a charming innocence is Judith Vittet as Miette.
Anyone who loves a visually stunning movie should watch this film it looks amazing. The sets, the impressionistic and exaggerated designs are brilliant. It is typically French in it's verve. This is a fantasy fans wet dream, believe me! ****
Movie Review: another french masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
This film is barly a science fiction film, it's more of a hodge podge of fantasy, old monster movies and fairy tales with many dream and surreal sequances.. City of Lost Children is more like the Wizard of Oz than like the Matrix, but is still dipped in enough science fiction jucies to suit my tastes. The plot revolves around a mad scientist, Krank (Daniel Emilfork), who lives off the coast of a surreal Dickensian French city in an old oil rig.
Krank does not have the ability to dream, and as a result he is prematurely old. In order to supplement his dream deficit, Krank kidnaps young children in order to study and extract their dreams. Unfortunately for Krank this is a self-fulfilling curse, as the experience of being kidnapped is so traumatic that the children have only nightmares.
In pursuit of this scheme, Krank employs a sinister cult of blind men called "Cyclops" to perform the kidnappings.
In return for giving up their sight, the cult's neophytes are given a mechanical "third eye" and a device which makes their hearing unnaturally sensitive. This augmentation is as much a curse as it is a boon; at one point the audience may witness the discomfort of one Cyclops listening to Denree chomp his food.
It is revealed that Krank is an artificially created man with superior intelligence. He was created by an inventor who also created six clones, a wife for himself (who later betrayed him), and a migraine-ridden brain in a jar named Irvin for him to interact with. Irvin's voice is supplied by Jean-Louis Trintignant; the Inventor and his clones are all played by Dominique Pinon.
The events of the film open with a sideshow strongman named One (Ron Perlman of hellboy fame) witnessing an orphan he cares for, named Denree (Joseph Lucien), being kidnapped by Krank's Cyclops. It later turns out that Denree is a special child, one able to provide Krank with the ability to overcome his condition (due to the fact that Denree has no sense of fear). One sets out to find and rescue his "little brother", with help of a nine-year-old street urchin girl named Miette (Judith Vittet) who holds the screen like no other child actress that I've seen.
Also in the film are a pair of Siamese twins known as "The Octopus". They run a thieves' guild in which they train and force orphans (one of whom is Miette) to steal for them. Due to unforseen circumstances, One gets caught up in a the theft of a large safe (which only he can carry). The end result of which is the orphans' failure to completely empty the safe.
Annoyed with this failure and Miette's subsequent decision to run off with One (Miette is their best thief) the Octopus seeks to destroy them. To this end they attempt to secure help from their former sideshow employer, whose trained fleas can inject poison into a person's scalp, inducing the victim to commit acts of violence when the flea-master plays his barrel organ and his scenes are the best in the movie.
Directed by the french duo of Jeunet & Caro who also did the yummy canniable flick "Delicatessen" (Jeunet later did Alien Reserection and the french film "Amelie") The story telling is wonderful the direction is flawless and the special effects are some of the best you could ever see in the mid 90's cinima. I don't know any one who has seen this film that doen't love it on some level. Yes, there are some confussing elements to it and takes some weird turns but this movie with all it's layers forces the movie goer to fill in the blanks and think outside the box to fully understand the complexites of this film...I've seen it a dozen times and I'm almost there!
Movie Review: Oddly twisted tale that is strangely delightful
Summary: 5 Stars
Krank is an evil, created being who uses the Cyclops to kidnap children for him so that he can steal their dreams. Intrigued yet? One is the strongman at a street sideshow, who has adopted a street urchin as his younger brother, Denree. One is not much more than an adult child himself, having a simple brain, and when Denree is taken by the Cyclops, One must find him.
One finds himself tangled up with a band of street kids, thieves and pickpockets, who are enslaved by Siamese twins named la Pieuvre. He manages to enlist the help of Miette, one of the older girls in the gang. If you boiled the movie down to basics, it would be One and Miette looking for Denree, but City Of Lost Children is not a simple movie.
'City' is a complex and sometimes confusing film, but is so richly done and bizarrely plotted that it is entertainment at its surreal finest. Krank (Daniel Emilfork) was created, along with his 'brother', Irvin, who is nothing more than a brain in a green tinged fishtank. His 'mother' is a midget, and his 'brothers', five clones (all played by talented Dominique Pinon) wait on him hand and foot. Krank and his strange entourage live on a dark and creepy platform out in the ocean, surrounded by mines that protect them.
Back in the squalor of the city, One and Miette are pursued by the greedy la Pieuvre, who winds out utilizing the resources from her old circus days, a worn out opium addict with an amazing flea circus. His fleas are trained to inject a poison into targets, the fluid being activated when an old hand-cranked music box is played. And Miette winds out meeting a strange, fanatical man who lives underwater, salvaging treasures from the sea floor.
There are many, many fantastical things for you to see in this film, but I have a few words of caution before you begin. First of all, this is a French film, and the dialogue is French. I strongly recommend watching the movie in the original dialogue with English subtitles, rather than watching the dubbed version. You will loose a lot of emotion in the inadequately dubbed voices.
Don't expect feats of FX either. City Of Lost Children has the feel of a play, using expert sets and backdrops, and winds out being a visually stunning treat with good, old fashioned sets rather than a lot of CGI. The costumes are marvelous, the photography is stunning (note: Daniel Emilfork is rather evil looking anyway, with his bald head, large nose, and large teeth, but the camera is utilized in a curved view to make him even more menacing) but the script is a little bit disjointed. All of these features combined mark a distinctive feel of bizarreness throughout the entire film.
Also to note, there are a couple of amazing sequences in the film, one in which we follow the events caused by a single teardrop, and another where we follow the journey of a flea.
City Of Lost Children is a film only for those who enjoy a taste of the bizarre, love to stroke their fingers down the spine of the surreal, and believe that off-the-wall is a livable realm. If this is you, then you will love this film as much as I did. Enjoy!
Movie Review: Original and Daunting
Summary: 5 Stars
If you were to combine elements of Fritz Lang, Carl Jung, Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, Jean Cocteau, the Brothers Quay, Ken Russel and Edgar Varese, you might approximate what Caro, Jeunet and company have created.These creative geniuses take you the audience into the innermost and darkest recesses of your Freudian Id. It is a place where nightmares of the most disturbing order reside, a place, as the movie's tag line promises, "Where happily ever after is just a dream."
If you can't figure out what is going on, it's OK. The lead actor, Ron Perlman, admits in the director/actor voice-over that is included as a DVD extra, that he didn't have a clue what Jeunet was up to the entire time they were filming. Jeunet, in fact wanted to keep his cast unsettled and in the dark, and a dark place it is indeed.
One aspect of the film that is particularly unsettling involves a scene in which several of the very young cast members are almost frightened to death by the grotesque-looking Krank (Daniel Emilfork) dressed in a Santa costume, along with one of his clone henchmen/brothers, (le scaphandrier/les clones) played by the late Dominique Pinon. Then again, on the director's voice-over, Jeunet reveals he had to cut a scene from an early segment in the movie, because the kid involved became "too frightened." I don't know if I, for one, could have handled that one, even for the sake of art.
This is obviously not a kid's fairy tale, nor is it a kid's movie. It's a genuine nightmare, but not without its share of Grand Guignol humor. All the villains, and even the hero, One, (Ron Perlman in another highly idiosyncratic role), are groteques. The only characters approaching normal are the children. In that respect, the movie is a reflection of how all children sometimes see the world of adults through the filtering lens of their active imaginations. Jeunet wants us to see that world from a similar perspective.
The cast is uniformly excellent. The young actress playing Miette (Judith Vittet) is personable and beautiful. The kid who plays One's little brother is real little character. Jeunet comments that the very young cast members presented some unique directing challenges (the little boy wouldn't keep his eyes closed when he was supposed to fall asleep, for instance). The cinematographer is a genius. Lighting, sound, DVD quality, all top notch.
Another plus is that there are several English/French language combinations so you can watch it dubbed, subtitled, or in the original language. It's such a unique and captivating movie that I tried it in all three modes. If your French is limited, as mine is, I would suggest watching it in French with English subtitles, as the actors voices in the English dub version do not measure up to the originals (particularly jarring is the actor who dubs in Pinon's characters).
If you don't mind mythology of the dark, disturbing variety and enjoy visually-creative, original film making, by all means check this one out.
Movie Review: A Very Avant-Garde and Surrealistic Film
Summary: 5 Stars
Known better for his highly successful 2001 film "Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain" (known simply as "Amélie" in the U.S.) and his 1997 film "Alien: Resurrection" (Part 4 of the "Alien" series), Jean-Pierre Jeunet also co-wrote and co-directed the very avant-garde 1995 film "La Cité des enfants perdus" ("The City of Lost Children"). The film paints a very dark and surrealistic picture centered around a man named Krank (Daniel Emilfork), who is unable to dream, but kidnaps young children to steal their dreams within a bizarre laboratory. Unfortunately for Krank, the children are so frightened by him that they only dream nightmares. Krank himself is the creation of a mad scientist (Dominique Pinon, who played Joseph in "Amélie"), who also created six clones of himself. He also placed the brain of his Uncle Irvin into a tank to keep him alive (the voice of Jean-Louis Trintignant). The children are kidnapped for Krank by an army of Cyclops henchmen under the control of Cyclops Leader Gabriel Marie (Serge Merlin, who played Raymond Dufayel in "Amélie"), the clones and Mademoiselle Bismuth (Mireille Mossé). When the child Denree (Joseph Lucien) is kidnapped, a very strong, former whale-harpooner named One (Ron Perlman), who regards Denree as his little brother, sets out to find him. Along the way, One meets and is assisted by the young Miette (Judith Vittet), an orphan who, along with other orphans, steals valuables for a set of Siamese twins (Geneviève Brunet and Odile Mallet). The orphans are highly reminiscent of those from Charles Dickens' serial novel "Oliver Twist" (1837-1839), but the Siamese twins are far more ruthless than Dickens' character of Fagin."The City of Lost Children" earned no Oscar nominations, but did receive several nominations for the French César Awards, including Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design and Best Music Written for a Film. The film did win the César Award for Best Production Design. Jean-Pierre Jeunet and co-director Marc Caro also received a nomination for the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival.
Memorable scenes in the film include the children dreaming of multiple Santa Clauses, the Cyclops henchmen at work, the Cyclops cult gathering, Miette and One over the water, the discussions with Uncle Irvin, and Miette's dream. The dark and mysterious set designs and cinematography are superb and elegantly demonstrate the clarity and depth of color that Jean-Pierre Jeunet later improved upon with "Amélie".
Overall, I rate "The City of Lost Children" with 5 out of 5. If you enjoy surrealistic and avant-garde films or are a fan of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's work, you will more than likely enjoy the film very much.