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The City of Lost Children
The City of Lost Children Promotional Movie Poster (France)
Directed by	Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro
Produced by	Félicie Dutertre, et al.
Written by	Gilles Adrien Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Starring	Ron Perlman Daniel Emilfork Judith Vittet Dominique Pinon
Music by	Angelo Badalamenti
Cinematography	Eric Caro Philippe LeSourd Darius Khondji
Editing by	Ailo August Herve Shneid
Distributed by	Sony Pictures Classics
Release date(s)	May 17, 1995
Running time	112 min.
Country	France
Language	French
Budget	$18,000,000
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

The City of Lost Children (French: La Cité des enfants perdus) is a French fantasy/drama film by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet released in 1995. The film is stylistically related to the previous and subsequent Jeunet films, Delicatessen and Amélie.

The plot revolves around a mad scientist, Krank (Daniel Emilfork), who lives in an old oil rig off the coast of a surreal Dickensian French city. Krank does not have the ability to dream, and as a result he is prematurely old. In order to supplement his dream deficit, Krank kidnaps young children in order to study and extract their dreams. Unfortunately for Krank, this scheme fails as the experience of being kidnapped is so traumatic that the children have only nightmares.

In pursuit of this scheme, Krank employs a sinister cult of blind men called "Cyclops" to perform the kidnappings. In return for giving up their sight, the cult's neophytes are given a mechanical "third eye" (called an "Optacon") and a device which makes their hearing unnaturally sensitive. This augmentation is as much a curse as it is a boon; at one point the audience sees the discomfort of one Cyclops listening to a character chomp his food.

It is revealed that Krank is an artificially created man with superior intelligence. He was created by an inventor who also created six clones, a wife for himself (who later betrayed him), and a migraine-ridden brain in a jar named Irvin for him to interact with. Irvin's voice is supplied by Jean-Louis Trintignant; the Inventor and his clones are all played by Dominique Pinon.

The events of the film open with a sideshow strongman named One (Ron Perlman) witnessing an orphan he cares for, named Denrée (Joseph Lucien), being kidnapped by Krank's Cyclops. It later turns out that Denrée is a special child, one able to provide Krank with the ability to overcome his condition (because Denrée has no sense of fear). One sets out to find and rescue his "little brother", with help of a nine-year-old street urchin girl named Miette (Judith Vittet).

Also in the film is a pair of Siamese twins known as "The Octopus". They run a thieves' guild in which they train and force orphans (one of whom is Miette) to steal for them. Due to unforeseen circumstances, One gets caught up in the theft of a large safe (which only he can carry). The end result is the orphans' failure to completely empty the safe. Annoyed with this failure and Miette's subsequent decision to run off with One, the Octopus seeks to destroy them. To this end "The Octopus" attempt to secure help from their former boss (a ringmaster at a travelling circus who kept "The Octopus" as an attraction), whose trained fleas can inject poison into a person's scalp, inducing the victim to commit acts of violence when he plays his barrel organ.

One and Miette eventually overcome these multiple obstacles, rescuing Denrée and the other kidnapped children with the aid of the inventor, who returns to destroy Krank's oil rig hideaway.

• A video game based on this film was released in the US and in parts of Europe on the Sony PlayStation video game console.^[1] This game is now difficult to obtain.

• Cinema of France
• List of French language films

• The City of Lost Children at the Internet Movie Database
• The City of Lost Children Website Sony Pictures
• Screenshots