The City of Lost Children

The basic premiss of this film is really quite simple. "Krank" (Daniel Emilfork) is super-bright, slightly deranged and lonely. He lives on a remote oil rig with only whom he can manufacture for companionship. His biggest problem is that he cannot dream. Without them he will die. He must, therefore, obtain as many other people's dreams as he can. To that end he constructs an entire community of one-eyed servants, a brain that lives in tank feeding on Alka Seltzer and some clones that are all led by the diminutively menacing "Martha" (Mireille Mossé). This "family" might have made "Dr. Moreau" proud. He hopes that they will help to collect enough kids to perpetuate his immortality. The thing is, all those he does manage to collect are nightmares because the children he kidnaps are all petrified of him. He needs some nice ones! Meantime, his army of robotic creations alight on "Denree" (Joseph Lucien) without reckoning on his determined strongman brother "One" (Ron Perlman) who is determined to fetch him back. He duly travels to their offshore structure and aided by the feisty "Miette" (Judith Vittet) and a lot of green wool, sets about trying to rescue his little brother - and all the others trapped in the installation - and to make sure that "Krank" and his hoodlums plunder no more. Emilfork is on great form as the archetypal mad scientist and Dominique Pinon looks like he's having great fun as the clones who do their masters's bidding whilst injecting some silly humour. There's an hybrid of stories here - part "Frankenstein", part "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" with costumes eccentrically designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier, and it does rather meander at times - but this is a film about it's look and it's sheer imagination. It's as if someone had allowed Messrs. Caro and Jeunet unfettered access to the props department at MGM or Universal and told them to use what they can. They have the imagination of a child and boy do they use it. Mechanical gadgets, gizmos, green mists, dense fog. You name it and these allow the whole thing to imbue us with a sense of a playful, dark, adventurousness. It's comedic at times, threatening at others and there's a surprisingly effective chemistry between the usually wooden Perlman and his juvenile co-star Vittet that helps anchor the fantasy. It's surreal and gorgeous to watch and you'll need to suspend your expectations of linear, structured, cinema if you are to enjoy it. It's unique and creative. Probably a bit "bonkers" too!