The City Of Lost Children

Jean-Pierre Jeunet & Marc Caro, France 1995, 112 minutes

It is rumoured that Caro made Delicatessen to finance this and if so it is time and money well spent. Jeunet and Caro have combined incredible sets, amazing visuals, brilliant sequences and - most surprising of all these days - plot to create a film that is a bizarre cross between Oliver, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Abyss and The Wizard Of Oz.

A green and brown mutant fairytale for adults, the film tells the story of a brain (Jean-Louis Trintignant) living in an oil-rig like fortress who steals childrens' dreams with the help of five clones (Daniel Emilfork and four lots of Dominique Pinon). When the young brother of a nice-but-dim strongman is kidnapped, he teams up with his nice-but-definitely-not-dim pickpocket orphan friend to track the boy down. On the way they encounter a Siamese-twin female version of Oliver Twist's Fagin, a drugged-up flea circus owner and an "Old Man Of Lochnagar"-like underwater salvager.

Incredibly, it all clicks together. Set around the oil-rig base and the town docks (Dickensian Leith at its very worst, if you like) the story unravels and unwinds before being tied together beautifully. On the way, the set pieces in this entirely studio-shot film - including the astonishing teardrop sequence - enrich and enliven the characters and story, the result being the best French film since Workers Leaving The Factory.

"Each frame filled to bursting point with visual detail... not a movie you can afford to take your eyes off for a second" - Variety

Review by Scott Keir
Taken from EUFS Programme 1996-97