The movie takes place in a sort of retro futuristic world where a saddened mad scientist named Krank has children kidnapped and brought to his lab so that he may attempt to steal their dreams. Krank, who lives with his miniture wife, cloned sons, and a talking brain in a tank, does not have the ability to dream and is desperate to do so. One of the children who gets kidnapped by Krank's cyclones is the "little brother" of the strong man at the circus, named One. One is devastated at the loss of his little friend and spends the rest of the film teaming up with some orphan street kids to find him. Miette, a little orphan girl who seems to be the leader of the street kids, quickly bonds with One and follows him throughout the story becoming his "little sister". There are other villains for One and Miette to get past in this film, such as the Siamese twins who think they are in charge of the orphans and use tiny fleas to sabotage people's minds.
For it's time, this movie has spectacular visual effects that will even still appeal to modern viewers. The story and the characters (as I'm sure you can tell from the description) are very strange, which may make this movie not for everyone. You really have to go into this movie without any expectations other than you know it will be strange. If you are into this sort of movie, I would recommend checking out some of Jeunet's other works, such as Delicatessen (which I may write about in the future) or his more widely known Amelie. Also, Jeunet just came out with a brand new film called Micmacs, which is now playing in select theaters and is absolutely awesome!
Fun facts:
- Dominique Pinon, who plays the clones and the diver in this film, has starred in every single one of Jeunet's movies.
- This movie was conceived 14 years before it was actually made (long before Jeunet's previous movie, Delicatessen, was written).
- Caro & Jeunet wrote the role of Krank for Daniel Emilfork.
- La Cité des Enfants Perdus
was the opening film for the 1995 Cannes Film Festival.
- Ron Perlman, who plays One, was the only American actor in the film and didn't know any French at all (he just memorized his lines).
- During filming, Perlman was bitten by the dog with the pulley and Judith Vittet (who plays Miette) was bitten by the mouse with the magnet.
- The Siamese twins (who are supposed to be conjoined at the leg) in the film aren't actually Siamese twins in real life. They were given a prosthetic third leg which they couldn't actually walk with so that's why you never see them walking during full body shots.
- A computer game was designed after this movie, of which Marc Caro oversaw the production and art design.
- At its time, this movie had the largest number of digital special effects for the longest length of time ever made by an entire French crew.
- To achieve the highly saturated colors in the film, the actors were made to have white faces and then the color palette was modified until their faces appeared skin toned.
This movie is rated R for disturbing and grotesque images of violence and menace.I agree that this is not a movie for children, considering the dark plot and subject matter. I would say that viewers over 15 would probably be fine. This movie is entirely in French with English subtitles, so if you're not a fan of reading while watching, you have been warned.
Link to the trailer
Yay! I love this movie, you were right. I think it's a particularly good movie to watch in a theatre at midnight ;). I love that you post fun facts about movies. Keep it up!
ReplyDeleteNow, everyone go out and watch Micmacs!