City of Lost Children (1995)

“City of Lost Children” is an amazing-looking, mind-screw of a film. A dark, wet, sewer-level nightmare of and about children intended only for adults from French directors Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. In this alternate past, a grim-looking megalomaniac (Daniel Emilfork) kidnaps children from a local city and brings them to his water-bound tower of doom. Krank is a crank. He is dreamless, therefore he is sleepless. He steals the dreams of children as compensation, seemingly commanded by a talking brain in a fish tank that could be HAL’s grandpop. Among Krank’s victims is a boy (Joseph Lucien) with a much older brother who can pop chains and lift huge weights. That’s French-speaking Ron Pearlman, he of future “Hellboy.” Pearlman's character befriends a local girl named Miette (Judith Vittet), and here’s where the film gets creepy. They snuggle on burlap sacks in a back alley, and he gives her a deep, long foot massage. Nothing untoward happens, really, but the hints, the insinuations … linger. They make the film squirmy. Me squirmy. There’s not much otherwise depth or feeling to compensate. Those French. B