Main Cast: Ron Perlman, Daniel Emilfork, Judith Vittet, Dominique Pinon, Dominique Pinon, Jean-Claude Dreyfus, Genevieve Brunet
Release Year: 1995
Country: DE/ES/FR
Run Time: 112 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
This visually inventive French sci-fi/fantasy tale began winning a cult following practically from the moment it was released. Krank (Daniel Emilfork) is a foul, monstrous creature who lords over the inhabitants of a small island; Krank's emotional being is every bit as ugly as his physical personage, largely because he does not have the ability to dream. However, he has developed a machine that can drain the dreams of others from their heads, and he devotes himself to kidnapping children from a nearby harbor town so that he can steal their pleasant dreams. Denree (Joseph Lucien) is one of the children who has been spirited off to the island; Krank discovers that he's an even bigger problem than he imagined when his big brother One (Ron Perlman), a harpoon-wielding mountain of a man, sets out on a rescue mission. Once he arrives on Krank's island, One encounters a brain in a fish tank that has learned to talk, a group of clones who can't decide who is the original, a pair of Siamese twins, an octopus that guides a group of orphaned thieves, and a girl named Miette (Judith Vittet) who says she can guide One to Denree. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
With The City of Lost Children, their second full-length feature, French filmmakers Jean Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro cemented their claim to a distinct authorial style. An elaborate dystopian vision with a fairy tale sensibility, The City of Lost Children imagines a resolutely sui generis world of freak-show grotesques, Dickensian orphans, and Rube Goldbergian convolutions. Revealing a bottomless capacity for invention, Jeunet and Caro tell their story with ruthless precision and flamboyance. As with their feature debut, Delicatessen, Jeunet and Caro's follow-up betrays their roots in animation. The baroque production design and darkly epic scope inspired comparisons to Terry Gilliam, Tim Burton, and Blade Runner; a less cited, but equally apt, reference point is the Coen brothers: like the Coens, Jeunet and Caro practice a cinema of consummate and self-conscious manipulation. From the eerily airless mise-en-scene to the archetypal familiarity of the characters, the filmmakers' exacting style is tightly controlled and leaves little room for spontaneity. It's a modus operandi that sparks debate: the movie received mixed reviews upon its release, with some critics accusing Jeunet and Caro of being soulless smart alecks interested only in the machinery, and not the humanity, of film. While not unfounded, the observation is also incomplete, failing to account for the signal pleasures of succumbing to the whims of master raconteurs. ~ Elbert Ventura, All Movie Guide
The movie revolves around a plot by the mad scientist Krank (Daniel Emilfork), who kidnaps children to steal their dreams. Among them is the little brother of carnival strongman One (Ron Perlman), who sets out to rescue him with the help of a young, orphaned gang-leader named Miette (Judith Vittet).
