'The City of Lost Children': A Wildly Imaginative French Fantasy About Stolen Dreams and Childhood Wonder
The City of Lost Children (La Cité des Enfants Perdus) (1995) is a wildly imaginative French fantasy starring Ron Perlman as One, a gentle circus strongman living within a strange harbor town plagued by the disappearance of children. The kidnappings are orchestrated by Krank (Daniel Emilfork), an aging scientist who is incapable of dreaming and abducts children in order to steal their dreams for himself. When One's young brother Denree (Joseph Lucien) is among those taken, he embarks upon a search throughout the city in hopes of finding the boy and confronting those responsible for his disappearance.
One soon joins forces with Miette (Judith Vittet), a resourceful young orphan who helps guide him through the city's increasingly bizarre underworld. Their search brings them into contact with a pair of sinister Siamese twins, a gang of mechanically enhanced Cyclops and a mysterious diver (Dominique Pinon). Meanwhile, Krank presides over an offshore laboratory populated by clones, a diminutive assistant and a disembodied brain named Irvin. The storyline follows One and Miette as they gradually close in on Denree—ultimately forcing them into the strange world of Krank's dream experiments.
Directed by French filmmakers Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro (Delicatessen), The City of Lost Children is a darkly fanciful tale of adventure set within a magnificently realized world of mechanical contraptions and grotesque characters. Perlman brings enormous warmth to the hulking yet tenderhearted One, while Vittet is terrific as the fiercely capable Miette. Jeunet and Caro fill nearly every frame with visual invention, creating an eccentric fantasy whose sinister atmosphere is continually offset by humor and childlike wonder.
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