OPINION – Good fucking gravy this thing is insane. It's just totally nuts. The opening scene is a dream sequence of a child where his room is full of Santa's and he starts screaming.
This screaming then dissolves away into a room with Krank in it and he's screaming. Around him are some of his minions including a female midget and Dominique Pinon. Six of him.
They all start screaming. I thought someone had spiked my dinner with LSD. You don't expect midgets and clones and multiple Santa's in the opening minute of a movie.
And no one talks for ages. It's just weird. Totally weird.
And it doesn't stop there. It's all very surreal like a French version of the Naked Lunch only without the heavy homosexual overtones. It's a warped modern fairy tale from the minds of lunatics.
So it's probably no shock that Ron Perlman is running around in the middle of it looking every bit the part of the strongman with a low IQ. Although he doesn't feature in the films best scenes. Those all seem to involve Krank and the Pinon clones.
Especially the one where he sings along to a record while dressed as Santa to try and entertain the kids he's captured. It's freaky and weird and just out there. It ends with the record sticking, "Santa" still trying to lip sync and the clones all slapping each other while claiming to be the "original".
It's a complete head trip. I think a lot of it is a tip of the hat to the surrealist films of Luis Bunuel and Jean Cocteau. Anyone who's seen Amelie knows that Jeunet is very capable but with City of Lost Children it's THAT much weirder.
It's a credit to Jeunet's skill that it doesn't become an overblown messy joke like Alejandro Jodorowsky's Fando y Lis. That film featured weirdness for the sake of it. City of Lost Children makes more sense.
The weirdness intensifies the situation that Perlman's One is thrown into. Like the Cyclopes, a street gang with weird powers and one eye each. These eyes are technologically advanced and makes them look like Borg.
Star Trek not Bjorn. They also have incredibly sensitive hearing, which makes for some unusual scenes when they're all in one room and a loud noise happens. They all simultaneously recoil in horror.
There's an insinuation that they can hear people's thoughts, which is pretty wiggy stuff. From all this you can probably make your own assumptions as to whether you'd like this film or not. There are a few great performances in here including Perlman, Vittet as the little girl and Pinon in seven roles.
The story is also quite touching with Miette and One sharing a friendship that's borderline magical. Vittet's performance is quite similar to Ivana Baquero's in Pan's Labyrinth. Both surprisingly strong performances for little girls.
I think Vittet's may be even better than Baquerro's although Baquerro seemed to do a better job of showing a range of emotion. You could put that down to Vittet being in character as the tough street kid. Regardless Perlman is always on hand to guide her through with a towering performance.
I'm amazed it's taken so long for him to get another lead after seeing this. He's so amiable and heroic. It seems he always gets quirky smaller roles but he is a star and both here and in Hellboy he's shown it.
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