La Cité des enfants perdus aka City of Lost Children (1995) Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Bizarre Kid Noir

"A fantastically warped Noir Fairy Tale" (Noirsville) 

Directed by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Delicatessen). Written by Jeunet and Gilles Adrien. Cinematography was by Eric Caro, Philippe LeSourd, and Darius Khondji. Musical score was composed by Angelo Badalamenti, Costumes designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier.

Mark Caro in the 1970s worked as an editor and designer at Métal hurlant, aka Heavy Metal magazine. He also inked L’Écho des Savanes and Fluide Glacial.  Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amélie) is a French film director, producer, and screenwriter. Jeunet met Caro at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in the late 1970s and began a sixteen year collaboration that began in 1981 with a short film called The Bunker of the Last Gunshots (1981).

The film has that "classic" grimy Neo Noir palette of carnal reds, puke yellows, intestine greens, dead corpse blues and bleached bone whites.

"One"

"Miette"

The film stars Ron Perlman as One, a sort of dopey, child-like strongman, Judith Vittet plays Miette a  streets smart "kid gang" leader.

"Krank"

Daniel Emilfork as Krank the mad scientist, Joseph Lucien as Denree the "little brother," Dominique Pinon as The Diver and the clones.

Denree the "little brother"

Dominique Pinon as ''The Diver" and the clones

Geneviève Brunet and Odile Mallet (née Odile Antoinette Brunet) as the conjoined twins called Octopus, Jean-Claude Dreyfus as Marcello who runs a flea circus, Jean-Louis Trintignant as Uncle Irvin (voice),

"The Octopus"

"Marcello"

"Uncle Irvin "

Mireille Mossé as Martha a dwarf, Rufus as Peeler, Serge Merlin as the chief of the Cyclops, Marc Caro as Brother Ange-Joseph, Ticky Holgado as an ex-acrobat who is now a carnival barker, and Lorella Cravotta as The woman at her window.

"Martha"

Here is a fantastical visual display of style combined with the highest studio stagecraft arts creating a very fascinating film. It has a Rube Goldberg-ish modus operandi that is part Sci-Fi, part Fantasy, part Steampunk i.e. The Wild Wild West (TV Series 1965–1969), part Head/Graphic Comix artist influence (i.e. Jean Giraud, Jordi Bernet, R. Crumb, Spain Rodriquez, Caro himself, etc., etc.) part Sergio Leone in the grotesque close ups. I also see a bit of Dicken's Oliver Twist, and films Seconds (1966), The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962), and La Strada (1954).with a dash of another French Kid Noir, L’enfer des anges (1939) in the mix.

There is so much coming at you that it's not humanly possible to take it in at one time because you are just not expecting it. It's like trying to tell somebody what it's like to be hit by a wave who has never been to a beach. Yeah, you can imagine what its like but you are not expecting a total assault on your senses. You have no concept that the water is going to weigh so much that it will knock you on your ass nor of the force of the spinning turbulence on your body, nor the crashing pounding sound of the surf, or the feel and after-taste of salt water. It's overwhelming even when you are prepared.

In La Cité des enfants perdus you are getting hit with a complex story, with fantastically weird characters, and a plethora of visuals, immensely interesting visuals and short vignettes that may or may not be important to the story. Stuff like a few second sequence of a reference to the blind leading the blind, or an elaborate burglary involving a mouse attracted to grated cheese with a string tied to its tail. The mouse pulls a magnet trolling for the key to the door. One getting drunk and hitting on a B-Girl in a dive bar. A raft of mice floating into the backstage doorway of a burlesque house. And they delightfully go on and on and on.

The only way to really experience the film totally is upon a subsequent viewings. You are ready for it.

The Story

We see a warm, fuzzy, classic Christmas Eve vignette. A Snowman through a window. It's snowing. In a cozy room, a wind-up soldier claps cymbals on the sill. A teddy bear and other toys his audience.

A small boy on a bed watches it all, A warm glow from the fireplace catches his attention. A rope drops. followed by a visit from Santa Claus. Its magical. A kids dream come true. 

But when a second, third, and forth, Santa appear, followed by multiple more then the dream becomes an over crowded creepy Noir nightmare. 

The frame warps like a fun house mirror. The boy runs screaming for his teddy on the window sill. 

One of the Santa's gets face to face with the boy and he screams, and as he does his face morphs into Kranks which breaks the connection to his dreamcatcher apparatus and we find ourselves in a mad scientists laboratory.  It's Krank's laboratory. Its perched on an abandoned oil drilling platform out in the sea.  

Krank is sitting in an elaborate barber's chair with a crown of electrodes. He is surrounded by six identical clones who all start screaming in unison. With them is a dwarf woman named Martha. All are wearing identical lab coats. Martha  starts slapping the clones. When all is quiet we hear a baby crying. 

In an elaborate glass coffin like enclosure we see the boy from the Christmas Eve Dream holding his teddy. The boy is also wearing a cap with electrodes. 

Uncle Irvin. A brain floating in a fish tank. Perched on a handcrafted piece of furniture resembling a desk on wheels, with old phonograph horns as ears, and a camera for an eye, a speaker for a mouth narrates in V.O. Irvin tells us that Krank cannot dream, he therefore is growing prematurely old. In order to combat the effects he tries to steal the dreams of children. They are all in toto Krank, Martha and the clones the creation of a vanished genius.

We cut to a city. Its a seaport city with a sort of Coney Island, Blackpool, Ocean Park amusement pier atmosphere, populated by sailors, shipbuilders, losers, drifters, ex-carnies, freaks, weirdos  orphans, and street urchins. It seems devoid of responsible adults, a City of Lost Children of all ages. 

Two boys are sitting on a pier sling shooting at a can floating on the water. Behind them, we hear the un-mistakeable music of the near by carnival. A 24/7 midway with bizarre attractions and various con artists. We watch as two other children, a professional pickpocketing team and part of Miette's gang of lost children, work the rubes. Miette's gang and the other local criminals work for The Octopus. 

The Octopus, is another visual delight. They are Conjoined twin's who are a sort of the city's main underworld boss and fence where all ill gotten gains are brought, and various criminal jobs are planned. The twins talk in unison, their hand movements are weirdly cross synchronized. When one twin takes a drag from a cigarette its the other that exhales.

At the carnival, a strong man act is in progress. One (the redheaded strongman) is bound with chains his barker is doing the spiel. One's adopted "little brother" is shaking a collection tin cup.  An older boy grabs for the cup the "little brother" bites his hand. The boy screams. The barker grabs the boy but the boys older partner seeing his meal ticket in jeopardy, stabs the barker in the back. He falls to the ground. The boy and his partner disappear. One seeing all this all go down brakes his chains and runs to his wounded barker.

Later that night. Its raining hard. One, "little brother," and the barker are their trailer. "Little brother" is eating while One is tending to the barker. "Little brother" and his enjoyment of eating becomes a funny recurring trope throughout the film.

Outside, Cyclops, a shady cult organization of thugs for hire, with a big eyeball for a logo has surrounded the trailer. They are hired by Krank to supply him with abducted children for his dream stealing experiments. 

"Little brother" is their next target. Krank pays them off in mechanical eyes and ears. Cyclops is solely comprised of blind men. Kranks mechanical  eyes providing them a green-ish TV image of the world. It is fitted surgically into their empty eye socket. They also wear a hearing aid device with a hand held gun-like microphone that  gives them super sensitive directional hearing abilities. They've done their research they know their target likes to eat.

A Cyclops agent has a candy apple on string attached to a pole. We see it hanging it enticingly in the window. The are fishing for "little brother." One spots the apple and grabs "little brother" and hides. Cyclops shoots the door lock, breaks in and captures "little brother" and takes him off in their van. One tries to run after the van with the remaining Cyclops agents after him. 

the Cyclops POV

One and Denree in hiding but Denree takes a bite out of the candy apple...

... which sounds like a thunder clap to the Cyclops Agents

One makes it to the edge of the water, then into a dockside office. Miette and her gang of lost children are inside robbing a safe. They all shine there flashlights on One. One tells them that he lost his "little brother." 

When the Cyclops agents come into the office they find Miette, her gang, the open safe, and an unconscious sailor tied to a chair. The visual ruse works. Cyclops steals the contents of the safe dropping a few bills for Miette and her gang and leave. Most of the money however was hidden underneath One.

Miette grabs the money they had stashed underneath One and then she and her gang runs off without untying him. One breaks free and follows them back to The Octopus' lair.

When The Octopus witnesses One's strength, they hire One to steal another lucrative safe from a shipyard office with Miette. The theft is successful but One is distracted when he spots some Cyclops agents and accidently drops the safe in the water. He takes off following the agents with Miette in tow.

The Cyclops Lair

One and Miette tail the Cyclops agents to their hive like lair but they are captured. The Octopus is informed of all this and then they go to find their old boss, Marcello an opium smoking gypsy, and a flea circus ringmaster, and hire him to return One to them.  

Marcello on the pipe

Marcello is persuaded, and agrees to do The Octopus' bidding. 

When Marcello finds One and Miette they are both tightly bound with rope and balanced on planks. The other end of each plank has a basket of dead fish. The dead fish attract seagulls who begin to eat the fish. The Cyclops agents assigned to the execution are betting on who will drop into the water first.

Marcello has trained fleas, that inject a poison capsule into their victims bloodstream. When those that are injected hear Marcello start grinding his organ they mindlessly attack each other. Marcello's music makes  Cyclops guards kill each other. 

With this deadly distraction Marcello is able to row out rescue One but Miette falls off her plank sinks to the bottom. 

Both One and Marcello go to drown their sorrows at a dive bar. Marcello talks to a B-girl, Lune to try and cheer up One.

At the bottom of the harbor Miette is saved by a Diver who brings her to his underwater lair. The Diver is the scavenger of the harbor colleting anything of value. 

The Diver however has amnesia and at first, remembers nothing of his past. It is with the help of Marcello and The Diver, the last major character in the film, that One and Miette recover Denree. 

Noirsville 

What an overall assault on the senses. A Surrealistic "Once Upon A Time in Noirsville" fairy tale for all, with a luxuriant score by Angelo Badalamenti. Bravo! 10/10

 "Lose your dreams and you will lose your mind"(Ruby Tuesday - The Rolling Stones)