La Cité des enfants perdus (1995) - film review

On an isolated disused sea rig live the remnants of a mad scientist’s experiments into creating alternative life forms.  These include Irvin, a brain in a fish tank, six identical clones of the inventor himself, and Krank, a Frankensteinesque monster who ages prematurely because he cannot dream.  To arrest his aging, Krank kidnaps children from the nearby harbour town and tries to tap their dreams – in vain, because their dreams always turn into nightmares.  When his young companion is kidnapped, a circus strongman, One, sets out to find him, with a young girl named Miette.  They have to fend off murderous hoards of android cyclops, the evil Octopus twins, and a homicidal flea, before they even get near Krank’s sea rig.  Then their problems really begin...

After the success of their earlier film, Delicatessen, Caro and Jeunet return to their nightmarish post-apocalyptic dream world with a film that has an equal visual impact.  From the very first scene, we are treated to some absolutely stunning special effects wizardry which gives the film its unique atmosphere and momentum.

The story, at its core,  is nothing more than a child’s fairy tale.  Some wicked monster kidnaps children and a brave hero comes to their rescue.  However, Caro and Jeunet’s approach is to take this familiar theme and add to it some magnificently original characters and to set it in a grim futuristic landscape, made tantalisingly real by the quality of the special effects.

Those who enjoyed Dominique Pinon’s performance as the lodger in Delicatessen will not be disappointed.  He appears in this film in no less than seven roles – often, again through some clever electronic trickery – simultaneously on screen.   Pinon’s chimpanzee-like leathery face is one of the film’s most memorable motifs – and the scenes where the various Pinon clones start fighting amongst themselves is both supremely odd and utterly hilarious.

However, in this film, the best drawn characters are probably the little girl Miette and her protector, One.  The two have a genuine on-screen rapport which makes their story moving without ever slipping into sentimentality.

On the subject of child acting, this film boasts some of the most effective use of young child actors ever.  The only other French film to use child actors so well is probably Jean Vigo’s 1933 film, Zéro de conduite.

This is a film well worth seeing, although, as in Delicatessen, the special effects tend often to distract from the storyline and weaken the characterisation.

© James Travers 2001

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