Once again the murderously tight a**hole of the collective American moviegoer ruins a perfectly good foreign film.

Rating: Null/10 (8 November 2001)

This film was outright slandored by American critics, a fact which I find supremly ironic. Alfred Hitchcock, as we all (hopefully) know, was unilatterally panned by American critics until the publication of Francois Truffaut's interviews with Hitch. It seems, judging by the present opinion of Hitch's work, that all those thousands of American critics were incorrect. The irony of Jean-Peirre Jeunet's film being panned by American critics should be obvious.
One must realize that there is an entirerly different approach to film in France. Sex, violence and slapstick humor are all integral parts of French cinema. For uninitiated American viewers of "Cite des Enfants Perdus" the constant burping of the cute little kid veretably ruined the suspense and drama of the entire film. Once again the murderously tight a**hole of the collective American moviegoer ruins a perfectly good foreign film.
As for the violence, get over it. The insular arguement:" just because violence exists the world of our making doesn't mean we should have to see it in cinema" is indefendable. I would counter, ignoring a problem does not hasten its amelioration.
At any rate, the reaction to this film is yet another example of the unfortunate attitude of supreme arbitration which many critics and moviegoers hold.