The title of this review is not necessarily true...a lot of the film feels taken from some of Terry Gilliam's abandoned sketches and crazed idea chains. However, it is an extremely good film, and a very enjoyable escape into an irrational and horrifying alternate world.
Films about dreams tend to really get me...the depths of the imagination are completely interesting to me, and seeing them put onto film is just a magical experience. This film, with the outstanding direction of Jeunet and Caro, achieves this feeling seamlessly. The movie feels alternately like a bad dream and the type of dream you have after eating something weird right before you go to sleep--not necessarily a nightmare, but it certainly isn't happy, and you just sort of drift through it, taking in the bizarre scenery and the ever changing array of characters.
The difference between one of these dreams and this film is merely that you actually care what happens to these characters, and it is well-plotted. Somehow, it manages to garner both feelings...and it makes for a really great movie.
Ron Perlman seems out of place for a while, but he soon meshes famously with the film as a whole, bringing a good deal of emotion to "One" without overdoing the cheese-factor that could have been eminent with the relationship between him and Miette. Daniel Emilfork is completely perfect, playing a sort of Frankenstein's monster with the most selfish of intentions for his evils--he wishes for the ability to dream. This is a strange concept, but it's really interesting to see how they make it play out so well. Dominique Pinon is also very good, bringing the comic relief of the role of the various clones in the lab. He is also successfully insane as the "original" scientist of the operation.
My final concesus is that this is a brilliant film, but I'm also a sucker for anything surreal and abstract. It's definitely a bizarre, futuristic fairy tale, but it really has a heart somewhere beneath it's outer illusory layers.