The City Of Lost Children

• Cat.no: PLFEB 36581
• Cert: 15
• Running time: 108 minutes
• Sides: 2 (CLV)
• Year: 1995
• Pressing: 1998
• Chapters: 41 (21/20)
• Sound: Dolby Surround
• Widescreen: 1.85:1
• Price: £19.99
• Extras : None
  

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  Director:

  Jean-Pierre Jeunet

  and Marc Caro

Cast:

Ron Perlman
Daniel Emilfork
Judith Vittet
Dominique Pinon
Jean-Claude Dreyfuss
Genevieve Brunet
Odile Mallet
Mireille Moss

Takingup where Terry Gilliam‘s Brazil left off, withsomeone strapped in a chair while a scientist tampers surgically with theinside of their head, Jeunet and Caro‘s second feature proves a worthysuccessor.

Since it boasts a far bigger budget than their debut Delicatessen, we now getnot just one amazing house but an entire dockside metropolis with narrowstreets, fire escape balconies and squares with circus style freak showsplus an abandoned oil rig and a forgotten submarine on the sea bedthrown in for good measure. France’s most lavish effects ever include aCGI flea (which takes over the minds of its victims) and the opticalmultiplying of Jeunet and Caro regular Pinon into several identicalclones. A spirallingly complex plot never suffers Waterworld‘s narrativeincoherence but rather threatens constantly to swamp its storyline bypiling one incredible detail upon another.

Having lost the ability to dream, Nosferatu-resembling mad scientistKrank (Emilfork) abducts children hoping to steal their dreams to thelong-forgotten rig where he’s ensconced with midget mother (Moss) andaforementioned cloned Pinons. Simple but good-hearted sideshow strongman One (Perlman in an affecting performance) develops a fondness fornine year old orphan gang leader Miette (Vittet), learns of Krank’s evildesigns and tries to stop him.

Pinon also plays a bearded mariner in a sub trawling the ocean floor, Dreyfus(Delicatessen’s butcher/landlord) sends out his pet flea to do its work andcompelling siamese twin orphanage head(s) Brunet and Mallet add to the mayhem.

Despite recognisably auteurial visuals and the reappearance of castmembers Pinon and Dreyfus, to its immense credit this is in no sense arerun of Delicatessen (or anything else you’ve ever seen, withbucketloads of bizarre costumes by Jean-Paul Gaultier who went on todesign The Fifth Element for Luc Besson).

French cinematic influences abound though, from Pepe Le Moko’s dimly litstreets to Pierrot Le Fou’s wrapping dynamite round your head, but so do nodsin numerous other directions as diverse as Gormenghast, Tintin and Stingray.A nineteenth century mechanical sensibility is evident in both the nuts andbolts optics attached to one eye of each Cyclops Sect member (the duo’s answerto Hellraiser III‘s Camerahead) and Irvin, Krank’s computer who lookslike an old fashioned flashbulb camera but who’s point of view shotsrecall 2001‘s HAL 9000.

If the original scenario, conceived before Delicatessen, is finally a lessintegrated whole, it still stands head and shoulders above your averageAmerican competition.

The master Pioneer have used for this disc comes from Lumiere Picturesby way of Entertainment (not, happily, the horrific dubbed pan and scanversion abroad on the rental video market) – and it’s flawless. (Lumierewere also responsible for the likewise superb Leaving Las Vegas master.)

Detail, like the droplet of rain that leaves Miette’s eye (Chapter 34)to land on a spider cobweb, presaging a whole sequence of likecoincidences, has a clarity here it never had on PAL VHS. The CGI flealooks fantastic, as does the incredible set design and the gentlywobbling imagery of the dream sequences. Plenty of chapters – andgenerally (like the sidebreak) in all the right places – even if thechapter with Miette’s tear could have started a shot earlier when sheactually cries. It’s a great disc – Pioneer would be well advised tocheck out what other goodies Entertainment have by way of Lumiere(Vietnamese splatterfest/art movie Cyclo springs to mind), see if themasters are as good as Leaving Las Vegas and this one and, if so, sign adeal pronto!

Film: 5/5
Picture: 5/5
Sound: 5/5