Review: The City of Lost Children
Oct. 4th, 2007 02:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
moonvoiceTitle: The City of Lost Children (or La Cité des enfants perdus)
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet (and Marc Caro)
Released: 1995
Rating: R
Plot
Mad scientist and artificially created man Krank (who lives on an isolated oil rig in the middle of the ocean) does not have the ability to dream, and so develops a way in which to steal the dreams of young children. His cult of Cyclops enable him to procure children who are so traumatised by the kidnappings that they can only give him horrific nightmares. The protagonist is a fairly dense but compassionate strongman named 'One', who witnesses an orphan he cares about be kidnapped. He sets about rescuing the young orphan with the aid of a young girl called Miette, encountering significant obstacles along the way.
Review
Jean-Pierre Jeunet is a distinct auteur as far as directors go, having several key elements that he employs in all of his movies (including the relatively light-hearted Amelie). He likes desaturated or altered colour themes, capitalising on the strange and sometimes grotesque faces of human kind, and showing how small events can create huge changes, among other things. The City of Lost Children followed on the back of the well received Delicatessen, and both placed him in the right position to be received globally with the following release of Amelie. At the time, The City of Lost Children, represented the cutting edge of what technology had to offer in terms of visuals, 3D effects, stage construction etc. To this day, it has aged extremely well, and remains a solid visual film.
There is a sense of Dickensian grime and squalor in the surreal fantasy world created by Jeunet. This, coupled with Jeunet's fascination with strange faces (he specifically casts for unusual faces), creates a grotesque and nightmarish setting perfect for convincing the viewer that children are being kidnapped and tormented, and an ideal harrowing environment for the protagonists One and Miette to come into their own. This perfect environment, wonderful cinematography and processing creates visuals which on their own deserve a perfect 10. Watching this film is a pleasure in how evocative it truly is.
Combine this with disturbing entrances from Siamese twins, cloned orphans, a brain that lives in a tank, which is at times kind and then coldly cruel, performing fleas and Cyclops that see the sounds of others and you have a film which is as much circus - especially with a strongman as the central protagonist - as it is squalor.
However, the driving force throughout the film is not simply the sumptuous visuals, but the narrative of the growing relationship between street urchin, Miette, and dense strongman, One. These two, driven with different motivations (Miette, certainly, wants to know what is happening to her friends, and what may happen to herself), develop an affectionate, touching and familial bond. This bond sometimes becomes more disturbingly romantic, than familial, especially during the 'radiator' scene (people who have seen this will know what I'm referring to). While this has the potential to become quite perverse, it is balanced enough with genuine care to never really cross that line. The relationship remains strong, anad develops into something strongly family-oriented.
The actors in this are wonderfully, exquisitely cast. Daniel Emilfork as Krank makes the most perfect mad scientist ever. Sadly desperate, frighteningly cruel, and then capable of fantastically evil expressions, he dominates every scene he inhabits. Dominique Pinon, a favourite of Jeunet (he also appears in Amelie, Delicatessen and Alien: Resurrection, all Jeunet films), is both comic relief and naive bumbling, adding refreshing layers and a level of humanism (not much though!) to Krank. Judith Vittet, an unknown cast to play Miette, is stunning in her strength and beauty on screen.
The special effects are used to wonderful effect. Jeunet is a fan of 'the butterfly effect', not the film, but the idea that a tiny event can have huge repercussions. He goes to great pains - technologically from a production standpoint - to show how such tiny events do move the narrative along... sadly, at the cost of the narrative in some cases. Spending 10 minutes watching how the movements of a flea for example move the story along, is really quite distracting from the actual story itself!
The City of Lost Children, can be hard for some people to take. It's narrative is sometimes swallowed through Jeunet's love of image and cinematography and just plain 'weirdness,' and like the maze of the city, this film is a bit of a maze itself. If you don't have an idea what's going on, don't stress, even the lead actor didn't half the time (as commentary reveals). Sit back, and enjoy one of the most evocative visual movies to come out of cinema.
Rating
Overall: 7.5 / 10
P.S.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet is directing the adaptation of Life of Pi by Yann Martel.
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet (and Marc Caro)
Released: 1995
Rating: R
Plot
Mad scientist and artificially created man Krank (who lives on an isolated oil rig in the middle of the ocean) does not have the ability to dream, and so develops a way in which to steal the dreams of young children. His cult of Cyclops enable him to procure children who are so traumatised by the kidnappings that they can only give him horrific nightmares. The protagonist is a fairly dense but compassionate strongman named 'One', who witnesses an orphan he cares about be kidnapped. He sets about rescuing the young orphan with the aid of a young girl called Miette, encountering significant obstacles along the way.
Review
Jean-Pierre Jeunet is a distinct auteur as far as directors go, having several key elements that he employs in all of his movies (including the relatively light-hearted Amelie). He likes desaturated or altered colour themes, capitalising on the strange and sometimes grotesque faces of human kind, and showing how small events can create huge changes, among other things. The City of Lost Children followed on the back of the well received Delicatessen, and both placed him in the right position to be received globally with the following release of Amelie. At the time, The City of Lost Children, represented the cutting edge of what technology had to offer in terms of visuals, 3D effects, stage construction etc. To this day, it has aged extremely well, and remains a solid visual film.
There is a sense of Dickensian grime and squalor in the surreal fantasy world created by Jeunet. This, coupled with Jeunet's fascination with strange faces (he specifically casts for unusual faces), creates a grotesque and nightmarish setting perfect for convincing the viewer that children are being kidnapped and tormented, and an ideal harrowing environment for the protagonists One and Miette to come into their own. This perfect environment, wonderful cinematography and processing creates visuals which on their own deserve a perfect 10. Watching this film is a pleasure in how evocative it truly is.
Combine this with disturbing entrances from Siamese twins, cloned orphans, a brain that lives in a tank, which is at times kind and then coldly cruel, performing fleas and Cyclops that see the sounds of others and you have a film which is as much circus - especially with a strongman as the central protagonist - as it is squalor.
However, the driving force throughout the film is not simply the sumptuous visuals, but the narrative of the growing relationship between street urchin, Miette, and dense strongman, One. These two, driven with different motivations (Miette, certainly, wants to know what is happening to her friends, and what may happen to herself), develop an affectionate, touching and familial bond. This bond sometimes becomes more disturbingly romantic, than familial, especially during the 'radiator' scene (people who have seen this will know what I'm referring to). While this has the potential to become quite perverse, it is balanced enough with genuine care to never really cross that line. The relationship remains strong, anad develops into something strongly family-oriented.
The actors in this are wonderfully, exquisitely cast. Daniel Emilfork as Krank makes the most perfect mad scientist ever. Sadly desperate, frighteningly cruel, and then capable of fantastically evil expressions, he dominates every scene he inhabits. Dominique Pinon, a favourite of Jeunet (he also appears in Amelie, Delicatessen and Alien: Resurrection, all Jeunet films), is both comic relief and naive bumbling, adding refreshing layers and a level of humanism (not much though!) to Krank. Judith Vittet, an unknown cast to play Miette, is stunning in her strength and beauty on screen.
The special effects are used to wonderful effect. Jeunet is a fan of 'the butterfly effect', not the film, but the idea that a tiny event can have huge repercussions. He goes to great pains - technologically from a production standpoint - to show how such tiny events do move the narrative along... sadly, at the cost of the narrative in some cases. Spending 10 minutes watching how the movements of a flea for example move the story along, is really quite distracting from the actual story itself!
The City of Lost Children, can be hard for some people to take. It's narrative is sometimes swallowed through Jeunet's love of image and cinematography and just plain 'weirdness,' and like the maze of the city, this film is a bit of a maze itself. If you don't have an idea what's going on, don't stress, even the lead actor didn't half the time (as commentary reveals). Sit back, and enjoy one of the most evocative visual movies to come out of cinema.
Rating
Overall: 7.5 / 10
P.S.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet is directing the adaptation of Life of Pi by Yann Martel.
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-04 05:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-05 12:16 am (UTC)I debated with myself whether to put in spoilers and then realised that no, didn't need them. I think you'll like this movie. I mean it is 10 years old, but it was my first introduction to Jeunet and I loved it. But then I'm such a visual person. :D
no subject
Date: 2010-09-15 12:03 am (UTC)