Retro Nostalgia: The City of Lost Children (1995), Visual Rhetoric, and the Critic’s Confused Apparatus
May 2015 marks the 20th anniversary of the premiere of Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s The City of Lost Children (1995). It is perhaps the most recognizable example of contemporary surrealist cinema, and it remains one of Caro and Jeunet’s most well-regarded works.* The surrealist nature of the film is fairly evident from even a casual viewing, as it embodies just about every layer of the film’s plot, characters, visuals, and underlying “myths.” It’s chaotic, moody, and, at times, bewildering. The City of Lost Children‘s, in other words, is not simply a fantasy; rather, it is a fantasy which has been divulged of its realistic undercurrents.
