The City of Lost Children is a fantastically weird movie, as you'd expect if you have seen Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's previous one, the French cult film Delicatessen.

As I think of this movie, I see in the eye of my mind foremostly its central couple, a simple strongman named One (Ron Perlman) and Miette (Judith Vittet), a ten-year-old leadress of a street gang of child thieves.

The plot is complex, but an overview of it serves well to give an idea of the style of the movie. One's little brother Denree has been stolen by Cyclops, cult members who have blinded themselves and see through one electronic eye only. Denree has been taken with other stolen children into the City of Lost Children, whose leader Krank (Daniel Emilfork), hopes to steal their dreams, being unable to have dreams of his own. Krank is accompanied by a migraine-ridden brain living in an glass tank (voice by ean-Louis Trintignant), a female midget (Mireille Mosse) and six clones (all played by Dominique Pinon).

The plot, however, is not what this movie rests upon, nor its strength. The breathtaking qualities are the surreal visuals, the characters with looks that would be hard to outdo with any computer effects, and the haunting, melancholic soundtrack. While wonderful to look at, the feeling of being in another world may be a little hard to achive. The plot takes some work to follow, and the way events are put together makes everything feel a little too much like a collection of admittedly captivating scenes than a story of any people you'd learn to recognize with. All in all, I rank this one of my all-time favorite movies.

All admiration of the fantasy aspects of this movie aside, the best spect of it all is Judith Vittet as Miette. The character Judith is given provides only a limited range for her to display her acting skill, but she nails perfectly the role of an out-of-necessity cynical, somewhat precocious chracter. Miette is mostly, if not fully free of stereotypes: not your typical cutesy kid of Hollywood, a funny miniature adult, or a silly pest. She's a strong person of her own.

In words of James Berardinelli: "While much of The City of Lost Children is surreal and strange, the film's emotional center – the relationship between One and Miette – is nurtured with care and genuine feeling. Miette sees in One and Denree the chance for the family she has never known, although there are times when her intentions towards the older, child-like man seem more romantic than sisterly. It's to Jeunet and Caro's credit that they are able to present the ambiguities of this relationship tenderly, without ever injecting a hint of the sordid or perverse."

If you fancy yourself as a film buff of even the slightest degree, this movie is not optional. Nor is it an option for me not to buy and forever keep this movie that holds Judith Vittet's regrettably only lead role.