The City of Lost Children

A film directed by Marc Caro & Jean-Pierre Jeunet and written by Gilles Adrien, Jean-Pierre Jeunet & Marc Caro

We lived in Pittsburgh around the corner from a video store when private video stores were viable- even downright reasonable as a business model. Like everyone else with a VCR, we belonged to one or more video store and made our weekly pilgrimage. Usually, this meant pick up something to watch for Friday night and return it through the slot on Sunday unless it was a “HOT” title- then it had to be back on Saturday before noon.

Unless I was home sick, which I only remember one time. Because I stumbled to the video store in need of entertainment that would stop me from doing more than lying on the sofa. If you were in my path at the time and came down with something, well, let me apologize now. I picked two weird-looking films that seemed like the sort of things no one else would watch with me: The Last Supper and The Young Poisoner’s Handbook.

If you have seen them or even clicked on those links, let me just say that it is quite the enhanced experience if you have a mild fever and make those a double feature. True, I had weird nightmares for a while and tended to wash everything really well while also becoming adverse to eating out. On the plus side, I really liked thinking about those movies. They stuck with me in a way that I describe as positive, which does seem counter-intuitive. Maybe they would have without the fever, but it was a complete experience.

I liked odd movies

before that, but much more in the ain’t-Monty-Python-odd way. True, access to unusual films was limited to cinemas that showed midnight movies and odd hours of independent television stations for most of my youth, so the palate I knew was already limited until video stores dotted the landscape like happy little pock marks, doomed to fade into memory except for the scars.

In my effort to recreate the prior experience, I checked out any number of movies. So, so many of them have fallen by the wayside, condemned to the tiny listings of the Internet Movie Database. None of the really outré films qualified as great with one exception: The City of Lost Children. I may have known about Jeunet’s prior work on Delicatessen, quite the little gore-fest that one. I definitely saw it before Amelie was released, going so far as to see that film because I already knew Jeunet’s work. A Very Long Engagement may even be superior to both.

But The City of Lost Children is the one that made those nightmares worth it. I watch Ron Perlman in any movie because of it. Traversing Pan’s Labyrinth was a natural progression. It is possible to trace all of it back to Chaplin and Lang, when they first stepped off the main road. For the rest of us, as the audience, that first step has to come somewhere else.

What’s it all about?

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 123 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out release regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry post irregularly. Receive notifications on Facebook by friending or following Craig.

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Last Chance to See

Book written by Douglas Adams

Honestly, he wrote other stuff.

But it all has to start with the book.

I found my copy beneath the Yule tree, a gift from by brother and sister-in-law. At the time of purchase, I’m not sure how much they knew about it beyond scanning the first few pages. I think they said that it seemed funny. I was probably the sort of youth that occasionally looked like he could use a little funny, like so many other youths.

They were right. It did seem funny. And rather difficult to explain.

I returned to school and made the unexpected observation that numerous other students seemed to be bent over the very same book while downing their cafeteria food. A few lingered in their chairs beside desolated trays. Who knew that a young man traveling around the universe with his towel would allow so many to identify so well?

In retrospect, the book was quite odd, like reading a Monty Python script without having seen any of the shows. A fierce intelligence seems to be buried within the text as well as a wealth of sarcasm. Yet, some sort of emotional core seeps through as well. Is it really possible to empathize with a whale that has only now popped into existence for a brief, unfortunate plummet? (I did read all the books in the trilogy- I’ll let you count them.)

Like so many others, I was delighted to read whatever Adams wrote. In those authorially-alphabetized sections of bookstores, his last name made the short list of place to check for anything interesting. (Poor Richard Adams was unfairly responsible for more than a little disappointment.)

I loved Dirk Gently, a character who managed the miracle of allowing the reader to project his own mildly heroic qualities into the novel. Come to think of it, that is the wonder of all the best protagonists, isn’t it?

Then,

this non-fiction book falls from the sky. What do you make of that, eh? So, Douglas Adams is a world traveler now, eh? Good on him. But what’s he going on about? Beasts that are disappearing through extinction?

I honestly thought that if anyone was going to change the world and make it a safe place for people and the rest of the animal kingdom, then Douglas Adams was the man to do it. Of course that was never going to be the case. But he certainly did his bit.

I don’t agree with people’s dismay when someone well-known spouts off about some issue or other. If Adams wants us to spend a few minutes thinking about extinction and the environment, then swell. The fault is in the hyping of the opinion. You write a book, then you seem to have given the issue some thought. You spout into a microphone, then that deserves the same level of thought you gave your fulmination.

Recently, Stephen Fry followed up on Adams’ travels. I’ve been a little hesitant to watch. It’s a little like joining Facebook and seeing who’s dead and dying. A certain degree of ill-defined responsibility suddenly accrues. If only someone like Adams were around to put all this dithering in its place?

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 124 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out release regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry post irregularly. Receive notifications on Facebook by friending or following Craig.

Images may be subject to copyright.