“In this land, all of us are alone, and far from home, and we must comfort each other and make the best of things... This is a strange country. In the day, it is always twilight, and in the night, you can hear the roar of the stars... Only those who are truly lost can find their way here.”
Arnaud Sélignac’s directorial debut is a quirky animal, akin to those you can find in children’s drawings, its naivety laced with peculiar charm. Told from the dream-perspective of a boy, Nemo (Seth Kibel and Jason Connery, respectively, as a kid and teen versions of the hero), it is a decidedly outré mélange of various, oft-incongruous influences, from Luis Carroll to Jules Verne, lifted from bedtime stories.
A plushy comes to life as an albino, organ-playing ape (Dominique Pinon, unrecognizable in the fur-suit). Harvey Keitel jumps into the role of a Zorro-like hero, Mr. Legend. Mathilda May makes her ethereal big-screen debut as Princess Alice of Yonderland. Carole Bouquet – of That Obscure Object of Desire fame – is perfectly cast as a female alien, Rals-Akrai. Katrine Boorman (Excalibur) purrs with a thick accent as a Russian countess, Duchka, amplifying the gleefully high campiness of it all. And sharing his wisdom with a bunch of characters lost in what can be described as one of the weirdest and pulpiest coming-of-age tales is ‘the poet laureate of television’ turned actor Nipsey Russell as Mr. Rip.
Anything seems to go in this fantasy which pays a loving homage to early talkies in its B&W prologue, only to put a spell on you with the magic of lighting and quaint, meticulously designed studio sets by Gilles Lacombe and Nikos Meletopoulos who would collaborate with his namesake provocateur Papatakis on The Photograph (1986) and Walking a Tightrope (1991). Further elevating the viewing experience – a throwback to the age of innocence – is wonderful cinematography by Philippe Rousselot and evocative score by Gabriel Yared, both of whom previously worked alongside Jean-Jacques Beineix on his delightful drama The Moon in the Gutter (1983).
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