Jeunet and Caro's City of Lost Children (1995)

THE PLOT: A twist on the typical fairy tale, The City of Lost Children is the story of an evil genius named Krank (Daniel Emilfork) and his henchmen of mechanically-enhanced Cyclops, six identical Clones (all played by Dominique Pinon), the tiny and bossy Miss Bismuth (Mireille Mosse), and a disembodied brain (voiced by Jean-Louis Trintignant) which provides the philosophical foundation for the group. The band of genetically-engineered characters live on a man-made island off shores of a coastal city, and it is from this city that Krank's thugs kidnap children. Why? Because Krank is unable to dream, he attempts to steal them from the children's minds.

When the adopted brother (Joseph Lucien) of a circus strongman named One (Ron Perlman) is stolen, One goes on a crusade to save him. On his way, he hooks up with a nine-year-old ingenue/street punk named Miette (Judith Vittet), and they develop a symbiotic bond in their quest to destroy Krank's plot.

Christopher Null
FilmCritic.com

ANALYSIS: 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.

James Berardinelli
ReelViews Movie Reviews

INTERVIEW with Jeunet and Caro: Freudian Dreams

You were thinking of a world depopulated of dreams, dark and gloomy.

Jeunet: It was the idea that we had. That someone who didn't dream but, just the same, lived very well, yet would want to see, in dreams, a greater dimension of the imagination. For us, someone who is deprived of that is condemned to die. That's part of what we wanted to say...If one cannot dream and imagine things, and if one is sentenced to the everyday, to reality, it's awful.

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.

What is your own definition of the world of dreams?

Caro: In every way, in this film, our vision of dreams is not at all realistic. We've read all the books about dreams, their significance, etc.; but, while it was thoroughly interesting, it wasn't necessary to take it into consideration for the story that we wanted to tell. One takes a greater risk in the realm of fairy tales than in dreams, in the proper sense. So we went in that direction, letting our imagination manifest itself.

Jeunet: The Freudian side of dreams is very interesting, but it's not at all our subject. That would have made for a tedious film, more of a mediocre parable...

Alain Schlockoff and Cathy Karani
Sony Pictures

INTERVIEW with Jeunet: Like a Fairy Tale

In all of your films (besides "Alien Ressurection"), there's this idea of people's secret lives and the crazy schemes they come up with to get what they want, like the elaborate ways Aurore tries to kill herself in "Delicatessen" and the kids in "The City of Lost Children" using a cat and a mouse to break into a safe. What's the fascination there?

Jeunet: I don't know. I think this film is a little bit different. It's also talking about destiny, but not this kind of chain of events. I tried to avoid that. I remember one scene I cut a lot because I did not want to repeat myself, the scene where they make love and the objects are moving. I am not very proud about that, because it's too Delicatessen. But I do the same thing in my own life. When I give a gift, for example, I put arrows on the floor: You have to open the refrigerator. Inside you have an artichoke. Inside you have a paper [saying] you have to turn on the TV. I am on TV. I explain that you have to open a book, etc. I love this.

I was thinking about "Delicatessen" 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?

Jeunet: For us, The City of Lost Children wasn't dark. It was like a fairytale, and in a fairytale everything is dark: the little children, the dark forest, they are lost. But it is so good to be afraid when you are a kid. And when I saw it again last year, I thought, "Oh yes, it is dark." For the first time I felt it was dark.

Andrea Meyer
indieWIRE

INTERVIEW with Jeunet and Caro: A Certain Cruelty

For some people, the film seems to be meant for children as well as adults...

Caro: Absolutely, but, as always, at the outset, the film was made first of all for ourselves. It's true that we've stayed very childlike...

The paradox is that the film, at moments, seems a little too dark for children...

Caro: But if you look at Pinocchio, Dumbo, Snow White, Bambi, there are some awful enough scenes that make an impression...I think that an audience member, whether big or little, wants to feel afraid, to have fun, to be moved, to cry -- in short, to be surprised. There has to be a little of all those emotions...

Jeunet: The idea is to rediscover, a little, childhood fears -- those in tales that were told to us. This is far from being gory. Yet, in the tales, when you read Grimm or Perrault, there's a certain cruelty.

Alain Schlockoff and Cathy Karani
Sony Pictures