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.
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