How can you not love this movie? From the amazingly talented team of Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet comes this superbly original fantasy tale, that just oozes inventiveness and drags you into it's world, where it's all too easy to completely lose yourself. Caro and Jeunet were, of course, the good people behind the brilliant 'Delicatessen'. The City of Lost Children is kind of like Delicatessen mark 2. The style is still there in droves, except in this film it's much more abundant, and while Delicatessen had a base in reality, The City of Lost Children can easily be classified simply as 'pure' fantasy. The film is very French, and even if you didn't know where it's makers came from, you'd be able to guess. The French style is great anyway, and an excellent base to make a movie from, but when it's mixed with Jeunet's personal style, we've got a movie on our hands! That's exactly what this film is too; pure cinema. This is the sort of experience that I watch movies for, and so the film gets a huge thumbs up on that front.
The plot follows a man named Krank. Krank ages prematurely because he cannot dream, thus leading him to kidnap the local children and attempt to steal their dreams. However, as Krank is many a child's worst nightmare, that's exactly what he gets; nightmares, which just isn't good enough. The fun starts when Krank's men kidnap the brother of strongman Ron Perlman, who then sets out with a young orphan girl to find him. The two leads; Ron Perlman and Judith Vittet do a magnificent job of carrying the film, and their very different appearances and persona's blend well with one another. Judith Vittet really does steal the show all on her own, however, as her performance is far more mature than you would expect from an actress so young. It's a shame she only has four film credits to her name. It's not the actors that are the real stars of this film however, as the surrealistic style just steals every scene. You spend most of the movie simply admiring the lavish settings and absolutely sublime uses of CGI.
As mentioned, this is exactly the sort of production that cinema was invented for. The inventiveness on display is simply stunning and puts just about every other film in it's class to shame. Jean-Pierre Jeunet is one of today's finest filmmakers, and along with a select group of individuals is one of the few directors left that are still capable of a masterpiece. And that's exactly what this film is; a masterpiece.
