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Like many of Jeunet's movies, The City of Lost Children mixes the grotesque with the beautiful; and contrasts the perverse with the innocent. Adults are childlike, whilst the kids are wise. Enter your location to see which movie theaters are playing The City of Lost Children near you. ENTER CITY, STATE OR ZIP CODE GO. Fandango FANALERT®. Cast Ron Perlman One Daniel Emilfork Krank Judith Vittet Miette Dominique Pinon Clones, Diver Dominique Pinon Clones, Diver Jean-Claude Dreyfus.
The City of Lost Children (French: La cité des enfants perdus) is a 1995 film about a mad scientist who is kidnapping children in a busy port town, and a circus strongman determined to rescue his missing little brother.
![City City](https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/sVJKC83CDSrsNdfwyceTUJewbKV.jpg)
- Directed by Mark Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, written by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Gilles Adrien.
Miette[edit]
- Miette: When you're born in the gutter you end up in the port.
L'oncle Irvin[edit]
- L'oncle Irvin: [after Krank's latest failiure] Who stole the child's dreams? Krank, in his evil schemes. But the happy tale had a sting in it's tail. The genius has a fit of pique, hear the genius shriek, the 'genius' is up a creek.
Dialogue[edit]
- L'oncle Irvin: [Following through with his suggestion that a solution might be found found in an analysis of Krank's 'tears'] Once upon a time there was an inventor so gifted that he could create life. A truly remarkable man.
- Krank: [Sarcastically] A fairy tale! Tears are welling in my eyes.
- L'oncle Irvin: Since he had no wife or children he decided to create them in his laboratory. He started with wife and fas into the most beautiful princess in the world. Alas, a wicked genetic fairy cast a spell on the inventor so much so that the princess was only knee height or less. He then cloned six children in his own image, faithful, hardworking. They were so alike no one could tell them apart. But fate tricked him again, giving them all sleeping sickness. Craving someone to talk to he grew in a fish-tank a poor migraine-ridden brain. And then at last he created his masterpiece more intelligent then the most intelligent man on Earth.
- [Krank freezes]
- L'oncle Irvin: But alas the inventor made a serious mistake. While his creation was intelligent he never ever had a dream. You can't image how his sadness made him quickly he grow old.
- [Krank sheds a single teardrop]
- Clone: [Seeing it] Boss!... There!... There!
- [Krank tries to catch it]
- Clone: Quick! A dropper!
- Clone: A dropper Quick!
- Mlle. Bismuth: [Bismuth and the clones start rushes around for a dropper] A dropper!
- Mlle. Bismuth: A dropper!
- Clone: A dropper!
- Mlle. Bismuth: A dropper! A dropper!
- Clone: A dropper!
- Mlle. Bismuth: [Finding one] Ah, a dropper!
- [Goes to Krank and gently uses it to get the tear]
- L'oncle Irvin: [Disgusted] The poor masterpiece became so crazed he believed a single tear drop could save him. And after many cruel deeds he died.
- L'oncle Irvin: [shouting] Never knowing what it was to dream!
- Krank: Irvin?
- L'oncle Irvin: I've got a migraine!
- Krank: Irvin, you know all about feelings. Won't you try to help me? Won't you explain why all those children only have nightmares?
- L'oncle Irvin: Because you are their nightmare. You could persecute all the children in the world, but there's one thing you'll never have.
- Krank: What?
- L'oncle Irvin: A soul.
- Krank: Because you believe you have one? You don't even have a body. The one who created us made us all monsters.
- L'oncle Irvin: No Krank, you're wrong. You are the only monster here.
- Krank: [Distressed] Be Quiet! He is the only one responsible for that, I say I'm innocent. I'm innocent!
- Krank: [Shuffles away and then turns back with regained composure] In any case, I thank you for your help.
About The City of Lost Children[edit]
- From Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, the distinctive French wunderkinder responsible for 1991's dazzling genre-bender Delicatessen, comes this similarly eye-popping effort, The City of Lost Children -- a film at least equal to its predecessor in terms of sheer style, imagination, and invention, even if it doesn't hold together as well structurally. The movie follows the adventures of a brave nine-year-old girl who teams up with a gentle, simpleminded strongman in order to rescue her younger brother, who has been kidnapped, along with a handful of other kids, by a sad, rapidly aging old man named Krank, who uses his scientific genius to project himself into the world of the children's dreams in a vain attempt to liven up his dreadfully bleak existence on his secluded island fortress. The City of Lost Children fancies itself a fairy tale -- albeit a dark and scary Brothers Grimm-styled one -- and, were it not for a few isolated moments of icky violence and questionable sexual overtones, it would make a fine children's picture. However, in its current form, we have a movie charming enough to capture the simple magic of Méliès' A Trip to the Moon, yet high-tech enough to feature special-effects wizardry worthy of anything in Jurassic Park; sophisticated enough to grasp Terry Gilliam's jovial sense of cynicism, but wide-eyed enough to evoke a child's innocuous way of looking at things (even though it's still gleefully hip enough to swipe a sight gag from Stephen Sayadian's sexed-up “remake” of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari). In short, we have a movie jam-packed with enough strange characters and wild mythologies for at least three films; ironically, therein lies both the picture's greatest strength and its most grating weakness. While it's undeniably wonderful to be presented with such a full palette, the sensory overload that inevitably occurs as the film progresses can't help but distance one from both the characters and the (admittedly marvelous) world they inhabit.
- Joey O'Bryan, 'The City of Lost Children', Austin Chronicle, (March 1, 1996).
- If I were to judge this film solely on its visuals, it would get an unqualified rave, no questions asked. It's only when I start to think about the story and the tone that my enthusiasm inches downward, because it's done more as an exercise than as a narrative you're meant to care about. Maybe the ultimate destination of 'City of Lost Children' isn't in movie theaters at all, but on one of those video wall panels like Bill Gates is installing in his new house; you'd see an amazing image every time you walked past, and occasionally you'd linger for as many more astonishing sights as you felt capable of absorbing.
The movie is an expensive, high-tech French production, using more special effects than any other French film in history, and it is appropriate that a lot of its look seems inspired by that Parisian visionary, Jules Verne. It takes place not so much in the future (or even in the dated but vivid 'future' as seen by Verne) as in a sort of parallel time zone, where there are recognizable elements of our world, violently rearranged. The co-directors, Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, created a similar visual extravaganza in their first feature, 'Delicatessen,' a 1991 fantasy about cannibalism. - If 'City of Lost Children' had been released then, the '2001: A Space Odyssey (film)' fans would have segued right across the street to take it in. Through the years there have been other such inspired films made for the eye: 'Blade Runner,' 'Fantasia,' 'Days of Heaven,' 'Brazil,' 'El Topo,' 'Santa Sangre,' 'Akira' and indeed 'Delicatessen' come to mind. I am trying to be rather precise here, because many people will probably not find themselves sympathetic to this movie's overachieving technological pretensions, while others will find it the best film in months or years. You know who you are. I am not one of you. But I have enough of you in me to pass along the word. Far out.
- Roger Ebert, 'City of Lost Children', Chicago Sun-Times, (December 15, 1995).
- Entirely created in a studio, and set in a world plunged into endless twilight-cum-night, the film posits a kind of neo-Victorian, industrial society where David Lynch would feel at home. Though “Delicatessen” was seemingly set in the wrong part of town in the early ’50s, “City” is more like a Looney Tunes fantasy sprung from the head of Jules Verne.
Setting is a multilevel smokestack port littered with industrial detritus, rusty tankers and the biggest collection of weirdos and humans since Tod Browning’s “Freaks.” Local heavies are the Cyclops, a Nietzschean sect of one-eyed fanatics who abduct young kids for crazed inventor Krank (Daniel Emilfork), an aging wizen who lives on a castle-like oil rig beyond a giant minefield. - But with each frame filled to bursting point with visual detail and multiplaned design, plus razor-sharp cutting that often eliminates transitions, it’s not a movie you can afford to take your eyes off for a second. In addition, the major set-pieces are so breathtaking that it’s sometimes hard to remember afterwards where the characters were last positioned in the plot.
Effects work, all done in France, is seamless, to the extent that some (such as the clones, all played by Pinon) effectively lose the awesomeness of being an effect. On a purely emotional level, it’s notable that the film’s most engaging moments are those when the filmers turned off the computers and simply came up with entrancing ideas.- Derek Elley, 'The City of Lost Children', Variety, (May 17, 1995).
- City of the Lost Children is just unbelievably bizarre when you watch it. The plot is a pretty simplistic good vs. evil ploy, but the city is the real star of the show. While it's funky urban-decay architecture and opaque green water is fascinating enough as it is, even more so are the inhabitants of the city. Here's a quick little list of what you'll see in this movie:
- Circus strongman
- Assassin fleas and their accordion-grinder master
- Evil Siamese twins
- A band of child thieves
- A brain in a jar
- Circus midgets
- A bunch of clones that suffer from narcolepsy
- Borg/Hellraiser-type looking people
- Dreams in a jar
- A guy with a tattoo of a minefield on his head
- A couple dozen Santa Clauses
- IGN Staff, 'CITY OF LOST CHILDREN', IGN, (17 MAY 2000).
- Can we find, in 'The City of Lost Children,' a parable on the desperation of modern man, who is progressively losing the ability to dream?
- Caro: We never have 'messages' of that sort, merely the desire to tell a simple story.
- Jeunet: I think of men incapable of dreaming...There have always been men to put on fantasy festivals, or to make films, to make others dream; and there are others who have never dreamed.
- Caro: Dreaming is also having the ability to preserve the spirit of childhood. It's true that it's a little metaphorical in the framework of the film, but there's no message.
- Why was there so much secrecy during filming?
- Jeunet: When working on a film of such scope, answering journalists' questions is impossible. There are already so many more pressing questions: where am I going to put the camera, what do I say to the actor, how it's going to be done, etc. And there are a million of these questions daily! [Laughs.] Also, we didn't want to spoil the surprises, so as not to wear the public out.
- Luc Besson's 'The Professional' shows the love of a brute (Jean Reno) and an adolescent (Natalie Portman). Here, could one say as well that there is a love story between One and Miette, especially as evoked in the dialogue?
- Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro in, 'Excerpts from a conversation with Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro' by Alain Schlockoff and Cathy Karani, Sony Classics.
- Indie Wire: I was thinking about “Delcatessen” and “The City of Lost Children.” While they are dark, they also have happy endings for the characters who deserve them. So, in that sense, maybe you’ve been sentimental and optimistic all along?
- Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 'INTERVIEW: The Fabulous Destiny of Jean-Pierre Jeunet', Indiewire, (Nov 2, 2001).
- Krank, an evil inventor incapable of dreaming, kidnaps children hoping to steal their dreams - but can only retract their nightmares. But when the adoptive younger brother of circus strongman One is taken, One teams up with thief Miette to stage a daring rescue.
- Kim Newman, 'The City of Lost Children Review', Empire, (14 Oct 2015).
- On the one hand, capitalism is presented as enabling self-interest and freedom, as exemplified by the freedom to produce scientific developments (Krank), pursue religious ideas (the Cyclopses), and seek wealth (the Octopus). On the other hand, it exposes the deplorable effects of capitalism ... the exploitation of childhood (the cynical orphans), of tenderness (the Original scientist, attacked and turned out by his own beloved creations), and of innocence (the terrified children whose dreams are stolen) while suggesting that there is no place in capitalism for originality, disinterestedness, duty, self-reflective analysis, and other defining aspects of 'the human.'
- Jen Webb and Tony Schirato. 'Disenchantment and the City Of Lost Children'. Revue Canadienne d'Études cinématographiques / Canadian Journal of Film Studies. 13 (1): 62. (2004).
Cast[edit]
- Ron Perlman ~ One
- Daniel Emilfork ~ Krank
- Judith Vittet ~ Miette
- Dominique Pinon ~ Clones/Diver
- Jean-Claude Dreyfus ~ Marcello
- Geneviève Brunet ~ the Octopus
- Odile Mallet ~ the Octopus
- Mireille Mosse ~ Martha
- Serge Merlin ~ chief of the Cyclops
- Rufus ~ Peeler
- Ticky Holgado ~ ex acrobat
- Jean-Louis Trirtignant ~ Uncle Irvin
External links[edit]
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In 1991, the creative team of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro introduced movie-goers to their nightmarish view of a post-apocalyptic world where troglodytes inhabited the underground and a butcher relied on apartment tenants to keep his meat cabinet full. Delicatessen, a bizarre black comedy, became something of a cult hit -- certainly not everyone's fare, but those who got it, loved it. Now, four years later, Jeunet and Caro are back, and, with their latest film, The City of Lost Children, it's apparent that they have neither moderated their approach nor mainstreamed their vision. The City of Lost Children is as visually striking and daringly offbeat as its predecessor.
In The City of Lost Children, Jeunet and Caro have presented another gloomy world where 'normal' life is no more. The film is saturated with atmosphere and features some of the most imaginative set construction of the year. The picture works in part because the film makers have taken the time and effort to frame a strange land where all their quirky characters can live and operate. Jeunet and Caro's movie is thematically and stylistically inspired by such diverse sources as Frankenstein, Dracula, Brazil, Time Bandits, and The Wizard of Oz. Like Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children is characterized by dark, twisted humor, yet this movie is more of a fantasy than a macabre comedy.
The City of Lost Children relates dreams to creativity, youth, and wonder. The capacity to escape the rational world through imagination fuels not only the desire to continue living, but the need to make something out of one's life. In this film, we are introduced the brilliant-yet-warped mad scientist Krank (Daniel Emilfork), who is aging prematurely because he cannot dream. In an effort to stay alive, he has begun capturing children to steal their dreams. One of the toddlers abducted by Krank is little Denree (Joseph Lucien), the brother of a simpleminded circus strongman named One (Ron Perlman). One is joined in his search for his brother by Miette (Judith Vittet), the nine-year old, wise-beyond-her-years leader of an orphan gang. Together, One and Miette seek to penetrate Krank's fortress; elude his six cloned henchmen (all played by Dominque Pinon), the deadly Miss Bismuth (Mireille Mosse), Irvin the talking brain (voice of Jean-Louis Trintignant), and the scientist himself; and rescue Denree. It proves to be a difficult task.
While much of The City of Lost Children is surreal and strange, the film's emotional center -- the relationship between One and Miette -- is nurtured with care and genuine feeling. Miette sees in One and Denree the chance for the family she has never known, although there are times when her intentions towards the older, child-like man seem more romantic than sisterly. It's to Jeunet and Caro's credit that they are able to present the ambiguities of this relationship tenderly, without ever injecting a hint of the sordid or perverse.
Daniel Emilfork is wonderfully frightening as Krank. Bald-headed and evil-looking, he evokes memories of Max Schreck's vampire in the classic silent film Nosferatu. Dominique Pinon, who had the lead in Delicatessen, uses his unusual face and goofy mannerisms to good comic effect in turning the clones into the Six Stooges. Judith Vittet shows great promise from one so young in her appealing portrayal of Miette, and Ron Perlman is effective as the strong, silent One.
Like Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children won't be to everyone's taste. In fact, even though I thoroughly enjoyed Jeunet and Caro's previous film, it took a while for me to warm up to this effort. The first forty-five minutes are poorly-paced and it's easy to get lost down one of the script's many dark, maze-like alleyways. The film tends to lurch along in fits and starts until Miette becomes established as a central character. From that point on, improvement is immediate and consistent. For those who enjoy the offbeat, The City of Lost Children is worth taking the time and effort to find.
City of Lost Children, The (France, 1995)
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro
Cast: Daniel Emilfork, Ron Perlman, Judith Vittet, Dominique Pinon, Jean-Claude Dreyfus, Mireille Mousse, Jean-Louis Trintignant (voice)
Screenplay: Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro, Gilles Adrien
Cinematography: Darius Khondji
Music: Angelo Badalamenti
U.S. Distributor: Sony Classics
Cast: Daniel Emilfork, Ron Perlman, Judith Vittet, Dominique Pinon, Jean-Claude Dreyfus, Mireille Mousse, Jean-Louis Trintignant (voice)
Screenplay: Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro, Gilles Adrien
Cinematography: Darius Khondji
Music: Angelo Badalamenti
U.S. Distributor: Sony Classics
Run Time: 1:52
U.S. Release Date: 1995-12-15
MPAA Rating: 'R' (Profanity, Mature Themes)
Genre: SCIENCE FICTION
Subtitles: English subtitled French
Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
U.S. Release Date: 1995-12-15
MPAA Rating: 'R' (Profanity, Mature Themes)
Genre: SCIENCE FICTION
Subtitles: English subtitled French
Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
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