La Cité Des Enfants Perdus [The City Of Lost Children] (1995)

“City Of Lost Children” co-director Jean Pierre Jeunet is man whose movies are always a visual spectacle, however sometimes their plot cannot match the quality of the visuals as the lamentable “Alien : Resurrection” showed. Fortunately, this French Language film is one movie where the script is of a similar quality to the spectacular cinematography.

The film starts inside a child’s dream - which quickly turns into a nightmare as a horde of sinister Santas climb down the chimney and start ruining his toys, while ignoring the child’s cries. We find out that the child’s nightmares are being caused by a man who was cloned by an mad scientist and finds himself unable to ever dream. The lack of dreams causes him to age uncontrollably so he kidnaps street children to his off-shore lair to attempt to steal their dreams. He is helped in his schemes by a collection of the scientist’s failed creations - including a disembodied brain, a midget woman and several imbecilic clones of the original scientist (Dominique Pinon).

The film’s plot starts in earnest after the little brother of circus strongman One (Ron Perlmann) is kidnapped by a strange cult known as the cyclopses, who only seen by artificial means, to sell to the clones. A group of child thieves help One in his quest to rescue the stolen children.

---

As the plot progresses it gets even more surreal – particularly an animal-trainer who uses fleas as assassins - but it’s still involving and never gets strange enough to be inexplicable and although the characters are as surreal as they plot, they still seem strangely believable.

On paper the plot may sound barmy but in the hands of a talented director and cast it makes a wonderful film. All the actors give perfect portrayals of some decidedly unusual roles and the darkly surreal city in which the film is set is marvellously portrayed. The music - by renowned score composer Aneglo Badalamenti - is also excellent, haunting and fits the film perfectly.

Overall, this is a film of rare imagination and spectacular imagery.

Rating : 8½ / 10

Click here to buy the DVD at Amazon.co.uk, although since it's a (poorly) dubbed version you may want to track down another version.

All content ©2003 William Marnoch.

Comments? Agree/Disagree with the Reviews? Suggestions? Random Ramblings? Whatever you might want to say, feel free to e-mail me at william@wmarnoch.freeserve.co.uk .