On 22 December 2020, I watched the English-dubbed version of a quite extraordinary French fantasy movie, La Cité des Enfants Perdus, known in English as The City of Lost Children and released in 1995.
Directed by Marc Caro and Jean-Pieere Jeunet, and starring Ron Perlman as a carnival strongman named One, it features a surreal steampunk-styled dockside city with Bladerunner overtones in which children are being abducted by a crazed malign scientist aptly named Krank (played by Daniel Emilfork), who wishes to steal their dreams using a bizarre machine created by him, because he himself is unable to dream when asleep.
Krank is aided and abetted by six simple-minded male human clones (all played by Dominique Pinon), a female midget named Martha (Mireille Mossé), and a large disembodied brain named Uncle Irwin (voiced by Jean-Louis Trintignant) floating inside a fluid-filled tank, plus a gang of cyborgs named the Cyclops, who trade Krank stolen children for mechanical eyes and ears. In addition, there is a pair of adult female Siamese twins yet who, inexplicably, are not identical (played by Geneviève Brunet and Odile Mallet), known collectively as the Octopus, who are also utilising children, all of whom are orphans, but in this case as juvenile pickpockets to sustain the twins' Faginesque lust for money and expensive baubles.
When a young child named Denree (Joseph Lucien) looked upon by strongman One as his little brother is abducted by the Cyclops for Krank, One swiftly swings into action, letting nothing get in his way in his attempts to rescue Denree. During One's perilous quest, he is secretly assisted by one of the Octopus's orphan pickpockets, a young girl named Miette (Judith Vittet), as well as by a mysterious amnesiac diver, who just so happens to bear a remarkable facial resemblance to Krank's six clone helpers (and is once again played by Dominique Pinon).
The City of Lost Children is a very complex movie that was co-written by one of its directors, Jeunet, together with Gilles Adrien, but it is also extremely intriguing, and full of weird symbolism that has been fancifully linked in the opinion of some writers to Freemasonry and even the Illuminati. Strange indeed, but it is fascinating to watch – and also to listen to, as it boasts a beautifully melancholic, haunting score composed by eminent American composer Angelo Badalamenti, whose other big (and small) screen successes include the scores for Blue Velvet, Mullholland Drive, and the Twin Peaks TV series.
In addition, his wistful, plaintive song 'Who Will Take My Dreams From Me?, sung evocatively by Marianne Faithfull, plays softly over this movie's end credits – click here to listen to it, and watch the accompanying clips from the film (albeit screened here seemingly through a colour-draining filter for atmospheric effect).
As if all of this were not enough, the extraordinary costumes that elevate this mesmerising movie to an even greater level of idiosyncratic strangeness were designed by none other than avant-garde fashion flourisher Jean-Paul Gaultier. And I haven't even mentioned the troupe of trained fleas that inject a violently-potent aggression-inducing compound into the bloodstream of anyone bitten by them in response to the commands of their owner Marcello (Jean-Claude Dreyfus). Ah, too late, looks like I already have done!
The City of Lost Children is unquestionably one of the most unusual yet memorable movies that I have watched for a long time, its distinctive imagery staying in my mind long after the film had ended. Giving an all-too-brief idea of what to expect if you should decide to watch it yourself, and I heartily recommend that you do, here is an official trailer for this phantasmagorical fantasy experience.
And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE!
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