The City of Lost Children – Jeunet & Caro. A fantastic live-action French movie by the creators of Delicatessen. It’s full of fabulous stuff: in a seaport, children are stolen by a group of blind men wearing cybernetic “eyes”, nasty Siamese twins send out a group of children to steal valuables, and a group of clones experiment with dreams. In a comic-book touch that will doubtless appeal to fans of Japanese animation, the principal character “Crumb” is a clever, resourceful and pretty young girl clad in a red dress. She helps “One” the side-show strongman track down a stolen boy, his “little brother”.
Most of the characters are grotesques, and in one case I had to resort to the “extras” to confirm that the actor really looked like his on-screen character and wasn’t digitally altered! Judith Vittet who plays Crumb is just brilliant. Though only nine years old when the movie was made, she was very professional and apparently corrected the continuity of the other young actors. Ron Perlman as “One” is also very good.
“City of Lost Children” looks fantastic, contains lots of cool scenes and unlike many fantasy films doesn’t have a plot that insults the intelligence of a five-year old, though it is a bit obscure in places. One of the best fantasy movies I’ve seen.