ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Saturday, May 4, 1996                  TAG: 9605070038
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 10   EDITION: METRO 
                                             TYPE: MOVIE REVIEW 
SOURCE: KATHERINE REED STAFF WRITER 

`CITY' IS ENTERTAINING, PUZZLING

If you saw the French movie "Delicatessen" and liked it, you will feel as if you are in a familiar, fascinating place in "The City of Lost Children," the newest film from Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet.

If, in a general sense, you simply like your movies strange and almost indecipherable - albeit with a sense of humor, a la Terry Gilliam - there is no question, you are equipped to appreciate this movie.

It plumbs the depths of a "Delicatessen"-like post-nuclear world, in which children are being spirited away to an off-shore fortress (that looks a lot like an oil rig) to supply dreams to a man who has none.

The heroes of this tale are as unlikely a team as the bedraggled child, Natalie Portman, and hitman, Jean Reno, in "The Professional." They are a circus strongman named One (Ron Perlman) and a young girl, Miette (the remarkable Judith Vittet), who has been working with a band of thieves for a very Fagin-like character and a pair of evil Siamese twins.

When One's "little brother" (he's apparently more of a young charge than blood relation) is stolen from a crowd at one of the strongman's performances, One persuades the worldly Miette to help him find the little boy - and perhaps, in the process, find the many children who are vanishing from the mist-shrouded port city.

Meanwhile, off on the rig, the dream-stealer - a self-proclaimed genius named Krank (Daniel Emilfork) - is looking for a child whose dreams have not become nightmares, which Krank himself has inspired through his evil. He is served by his brothers, who are clones (all played by Dominique Pinon), and a strange little Bride of Frankenstein-``Twin Peaks''-style midget cross named Marthe.

Starting to see the problem? This really is all very interesting, but difficult - at times impossible - to follow.

As a visual experience, it is even more extraordinary than "Delicatessen" because Caro and Jeunet have added special effects to their enormous bag of visual tricks.

And the characters are well-defined, no complaint there, especially the twins, whose sight gags are too good to give away. We are not so dim that we can't see through all this fog some flickering message about individuality, that thing we are born with that life conspires to steal from us, yatta, yatta, yatta.

But there are too many competing flavors in this soup, too little restraint by Caro and Jeunet, so what one comes away with is a sense of a place, a feeling of have been somewhere very odd - that feeling one has upon waking from a long and complicated dream.

And maybe that's just as it should be, given the movie's subject matter. But this may just be one of those cinematic dreams that makes sense, finally, to the dreamers - which leaves us all entertained, but a little bit at a loss.

Want to talk about the movies? E-mail Katherine at movieyak.aol.com

The City of Lost Children ***

A Sony Pictures Classic release showing at The Grandin Theatre. Rated R for brief nudity and disturbing subject matter. 112 mins.

LENGTH: Medium:   65 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  Judith Vittet (left, head turned) and Ron Perlman 
          (right, head turned) are Miette and One in "The City of Lost 
          Children." color.