As soon as the film begins, it becomes quite clear through the heartbraking motif in teenage Leaf's introductory monologue that the boy just doesn't belong. After we see the boy kicking his own dog for no reason, we understand that Leaf doesn't want to belong either. He flees home, school and his neigbourhood and ends up in a dumpster with only companions a spray can and Baggy, an old plastic bag that Leaf happened to save from The Armor Truck (a garbage track, actually), the villain of the movie.
City of Lost Things is screening at Asian Pop Up Cinema
Leaf is a sixteen-year old that everything seems to be so bleak to him that comes in great contrast with the brave and focused plastic bag, Baggy. Baggy is a heroic figure (the plastic bag, yes), that has developed a beautiful philosophy about the purpose of his life and his solemn aim is to fulfill it, as himself and other rubbish from the City Of Lost Things desire not to remain forever unwanted but to become useful again by escaping the dumpster. On the other hand, Leaf acts as a modern Raskolnikov, therefore he isn't the most favourable character of the film, despising everything and dreaming of nothing, so his “residency” in this wierd city really suits him well.
A festival favourite, “City Of Lost Things” comes with a budget 3D animation, the one that we are used to seeing in the most European and Asian productions, that serves all its purposes regarding the movie's eccentric imaginery needs. The City's own god, a traditional statue escorted by mannequins with lamps instead of heads is a grotesque, Tim Burton-kind-of allusion and the huge medusa-shaped bunch of flying plastic bags is a certain reference to Pixar's “UP” balloons. Also, while our scenery is a dumpster, it was convinient for the creators to hid several items of pop culture among the trash with the most recognisable being Toy Story's T-Rex.
As for the star of the show, Baggy…The dance of the plastic bag in the wind remind me that monumental scene from “American Beauty” when Ricky Fitts, while watching the recording of a plastic bag in his video camera states that “There's so much beauty in world, and sometimes I feel like I can't take it”. Consequently, I feel that “City Of Lost Things” is a movie targeting teenagers and young adults, as the potential for a kid to feel as vague and empty as Leaf feels is very low in normal circumstances. However, I also believe that with the proper explanatory attempt, a child would be in great benefit to comprehent the message of item sustainability near the end of the movie which I won't spoil, combined (for the grown ups) with the on-going ability of a person to transform, to adapt, to create and develop a self whenever there's a need for it to happen.
