AllMovie

Together with long-time artistic partner Jean-Pierre Jeunet, multi-talented French director/writer/cartoonist/occasional actor Marc Caro created two of the most visually striking feature films of the 1990s. Beginning with such short films as Le Manège (1980), Caro and Jeunet collaborated on ads, music videos, and shorts throughout the 1980s, drawing on animation and computer effects to create an idiosyncratic style shot through with their mordant sense of humor. Bringing their unique sensibility to features in the 1990s, Caro and Jeunet scored an international art house hit with their debut film Delicatessen (1991). An outrageous "retro future" black comedy, Delicatessen attracted devoted fans and critical raves for its ultra-stylish sepia-toned cinematography, dankly sinister setting, and gruesomely humorous yet sensitive story of post-apocalyptic survival by a group of characters that defined "oddball." Bolstered by international acclaim and several awards for Delicatessen, Caro and Jeunet next set their sights on making a film they'd been planning since the first years of their collaboration, The City of Lost Children (1995). Shooting entirely on studio sets using even more elaborate special effects, Caro devised appropriately fantastic Jules Verne-esque imagery for a tale about a mad scientist who steals children's dreams. Though some critics took issue with The City of Lost Children's occasionally opaque narrative, all hailed its peerless production design. While Caro and Jeunet parted ways after The City of Lost Children for their own artistic pursuits, Caro (who had always taken charge of the visuals while Jeunet dealt with the actors) received a design supervisor credit for Jeunet's solo Hollywood debut, Alien Resurrection (1997).