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The City of Lost Children (1995)
La cité des enfants perdus (original title)
Directors: Marc Caro, Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Writers: Gilles Adrien, Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Cast: Ron Perlman, Daniel Emilfork, Judith Vittet
Genre: Fantasy, Sci Fi
Language: French
About: An aging scientist in a dystopian surrealist society, who is unable to dream...kidnaps street children to steal their dreams in a hope of slowing his advance aging process.
Review: This is a French language film, but on the DVD it also has available an English dubbed version, which I watched. Dubbed version are usually pretty bad and not worth the time but this was done very well. I'm pretty sure Ron Pearlman did his own voice in English with a strong Russian accent, and it fit him. The little girl's vocal track matched up perfectly as far as I can tell, it sounded like her voice. Usually dubbed movies seem distracting, but either the actual actors dubbed this in English, or whoever did the voice acting and sound mixing deserves awards.
Ron Pearlman and the little girl had the best chemistry and I was rooting for them all the way. The little blonde boy who liked to eat sausage cracked me up. All around I thought this was really well done. I liked the twin evil ladies, the talking brain and the Captain Nemo guy who lived under the harbor.
At times some of the characters were overly zany, especially the clones... now I know why the French love Jerry Lewis movies, he would have been right at home here.
The sets were totally cool and the movie did something I love, world building. I believed that this alternative place could exist with all the outstanding characters. I still don't know if I understood all of the story, but that doesn't matter because it was a fun watch.
Visually, the sets and the cinematography are out of this world!
The City of Lost Children (1995)
Directors: Marc Caro, Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Writers: Gilles Adrien, Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Cast: Ron Perlman, Daniel Emilfork, Judith Vittet
Genre: Fantasy, Sci Fi
Language: French
About: An aging scientist in a dystopian surrealist society, who is unable to dream...kidnaps street children to steal their dreams in a hope of slowing his advance aging process.
Review: This is a French language film, but on the DVD it also has available an English dubbed version, which I watched. Dubbed version are usually pretty bad and not worth the time but this was done very well. I'm pretty sure Ron Pearlman did his own voice in English with a strong Russian accent, and it fit him. The little girl's vocal track matched up perfectly as far as I can tell, it sounded like her voice. Usually dubbed movies seem distracting, but either the actual actors dubbed this in English, or whoever did the voice acting and sound mixing deserves awards.
Ron Pearlman and the little girl had the best chemistry and I was rooting for them all the way. The little blonde boy who liked to eat sausage cracked me up. All around I thought this was really well done. I liked the twin evil ladies, the talking brain and the Captain Nemo guy who lived under the harbor.
At times some of the characters were overly zany, especially the clones... now I know why the French love Jerry Lewis movies, he would have been right at home here.
The sets were totally cool and the movie did something I love, world building. I believed that this alternative place could exist with all the outstanding characters. I still don't know if I understood all of the story, but that doesn't matter because it was a fun watch.
Visually, the sets and the cinematography are out of this world!