The City Of Lost Children

Distributed by
Pioneer LDCE

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

Taking up where Terry Gilliam's Brazil left off, with someone strapped in a chair while a scientist tampers surgically with the inside of their head, Jeunet and Caro's second feature proves a worthy successor.

Since it boasts a far bigger budget than their debut Delicatessen, we now get not just one amazing house but an entire dockside metropolis with narrow streets, fire escape balconies and squares with circus style freak shows plus an abandoned oil rig and a forgotten submarine on the sea bed thrown in for good measure. France's most lavish effects ever include a CGI flea (which takes over the minds of its victims) and the optical multiplying of Jeunet and Caro regular Pinon into several identical clones. A spirallingly complex plot never suffers Waterworld's narrative incoherence but rather threatens constantly to swamp its storyline by piling one incredible detail upon another.

Having lost the ability to dream, Nosferatu-resembling mad scientist Krank (Emilfork) abducts children hoping to steal their dreams to the long-forgotten rig where he's ensconced with midget mother (Moss) and aforementioned cloned Pinons. Simple but good-hearted sideshow strong man One (Perlman in an affecting performance) develops a fondness for nine year old orphan gang leader Miette (Vittet), learns of Krank's evil designs 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 and compelling siamese twin orphanage head(s) Brunet and Mallet add to the mayhem.

Despite recognisably auteurial visuals and the reappearance of cast members Pinon and Dreyfus, to its immense credit this is in no sense a rerun of Delicatessen (or anything else you've ever seen, with bucketloads of bizarre costumes by Jean-Paul Gaultier who went on to design The Fifth Element for Luc Besson).

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

If the original scenario, conceived before Delicatessen, is finally a less integrated whole, it still stands head and shoulders above your average American competition.

The master Pioneer have used for this disc comes from Lumiere Pictures by way of Entertainment (not, happily, the horrific dubbed pan and scan version abroad on the rental video market) - and it's flawless. (Lumiere were 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 like coincidences, has a clarity here it never had on PAL VHS. The CGI flea looks fantastic, as does the incredible set design and the gently wobbling imagery of the dream sequences. Plenty of chapters - and generally (like the sidebreak) in all the right places - even if the chapter with Miette's tear could have started a shot earlier when she actually cries. It's a great disc - Pioneer would be well advised to check out what other goodies Entertainment have by way of Lumiere (Vietnamese splatterfest/art movie Cyclo springs to mind), see if the masters are as good as Leaving Las Vegas and this one and, if so, sign a deal pronto!

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

Review copyright © Jeremy Clarke, 1998.