In the future, a race of ‘Oms’ are being keep as ‘loose pets’ on the giant Draags home planet. The Draags are aliens a hundreds bigger than the human Oms, they live longer and keep Oms as pets whilst they continue they’re technological n spiritual exploration. The Oms are likes flies, a child Draags called Tiva playing deadly games with them, killing this particular Oms woman who has an infant, whom he takes and names Terr. Tiva’s father is the master Draag Sinh, who uses collars to physical control both Oms & Tiva, who we follow through systematic living, through tubes and extensions, thus the adult Terr provides expositional narration. As Tiva grows we also follow Terr who escapes to an Oms commune with a telepathic learning headset, which he uses to improve the other Oms knowledge, and so we have the ingredients to go with their explorations all over The Savage Planet of Ygam, mostly a desert of sand and metro. Alertly called La Planete Sauvage, Rene Laloux’s scope is hard to fathom, so are the themes, which are dealt with far more measure then early 70’s sci-fi like Silent Running or Logan’s Run, Andre Bazin probably loved this contradiction of presentation and undercurrent, though the animation seems to best please a teenager. The cut-out animal-landscape surrealism is give-n-take inspiration of/for Gilliam’s Flying Circus animation-interludes, so without a feature animation to truly compare in to, I’d say that on one viewing its 95% better than any anime I’ve seen, I like Miyazaki/Takahara , frankly comparing his message-movies to this is like comparing Blade Runner to 2001, the comparison is more in cinematography and effects, all alive here, Wall-E seems the only modern animation with the same level of sound effects and imagination all over the frame, Miyazaki also having an ability to fill the frame, pity he repeats the same ‘worlds’ and characters over and over. Fantastic Planet uses futuristic French techno rock that drives the story and keeps you intrigued like an audience member at Woodstock 69, weather you watching with enhancements or not. The music is even more fitting than 2001’s opening, primitive sequence, considered an inspiration in ideals for principal creator Laloux. I personally would rather this Alian Goraguer score to say the Lawrence of Arabia score if I went on an existential desert walkabout, again this reminisces of the failed psychedelica in Olive Stone’s The Doors, the same director providing a more sickly satisfying exploration four years later with Natural Born Killers, the brutal cousin of the innocent in-design Fantastic Planet. If you want a feel for early digital art, seventies stylings, listen to the English dub, I don’t know of the original French-language feel, maybe it’s much the either-or audio option to City of Lost Children, a more linear lost-in-space-n-time French fairytale film. Not as funny as Allegro Mon Troppo, does set more of a world, he’s less extravagant in backgrounds, more focused on Dali-esce mixed bags and ideals of collaborator and French writer/artist Roland Topor. The backgrounds seem a template for the great modern clay-animations, if Solaris disappointed you like me; simply look at this other 1973 release, which has the vision more of Stalker without that film’s character dribbling. The film also bears similarly to The Fountain, without that films lovey dovey conquering, being an animation nobody will object to the films aggressive symbolism and , to he not enough sci-fi is like that, this film really shouts at metaphoric, subtle who-har like The Fountain, Solaris, 1984, Alphaville, Akira, Gattaca. In the world of animation, score is king, making many Disney themes seem manufactory, thankfully less mind-warping, which Fantastic Planet does, making the sound seem everywhere.
Another modern animation Wall-E, is a good, musical, cautionary tale which is as fantastic in a three dimensional way, Fantastic Planet is the indie Wall-E, with a bit better a take on hope, though Wall-E hints that through great character, Fantastic Planet uses the innocence of childhood very well to hold less sentiment and as many visual fun chases and races. As a big fan of Metropolis as a 12 year old, I think Fantastic Planet is that and Holy Grail mixed together, any teenager like me should see this, its better than going down to any art gallery, if fact its like going to a live paint show, bold and unpredictable, with colours, flashes and futurism to fascinate and freak. The other Laloux feature I’ve seen, Time Masters, is another great adaptation of a Stefan Wul space-desert-planet sci-fi dystopia, with a great flair of time travel, it came the same year as Time Bandits, Wul, real name Pierre Pairault, seems a far more literate, consistent and less pompous contempary to Michael Crichton, with 12 sci-fi novels of great title naming to his psu. Think how Andromeda Strain’s pyshc-out scenes fall short of Wul-ism in its delusions of grandeur, Fantastic Planet is a lot like the Acid Westerns of the time, story and character developing all along, the only pseudo-existential films of the 70’s that haven’t aged like their actors. Laloux’s film that evokes gut-twisting can be divisive, within France you’ve got Irreversible breaking any sense of realism or humanity with trendy, plagiaristic storytelling, non Fantastic Planet is to me what A Clockwork Orange or Fight Club, two of my ten favourite films, are to its detectors or loving haters, this being animation has a playfulness that is unpredictable and intellectual, a world that makes you somewhat appreciate your own every changing one. Hopefully the remake will ‘reach’ the original for false fans who only like it cause its Cult and French, as if Hollywood couldn’t do it, not that they should, there are ten other Stefan Wul novels to source from, L.A... Darcy S. McCallum |
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Fantastic Planet is a psychedelic, futurism dystopian French animation from 1973, two beings, one depraved; one primitive is presented, based on a Stefan Wul novel, Rene Laloux’s co-adaptation with Roland Topor is a visually rich, everlasting offering from the era of badly told sci-fi morality tales, which ranged in theme, acting, effects, budget and pretension, Fantastic Planet plays differently to Soylent Green & The Andromeda Strain with no performance acting or 3D effects its stands with A Clockwork Orange, Brazil, Dark City, as a proper dystopia with nightmarish and surreal qualities. 
Baring similarities to Monsters Inc, the chains are off here and the creature features are a surrealists delight, weather this is an anti-evolution picture or against cloning is unknown, a 3D realisation of the story would be as harrowing as The Witches, maybe like that film it lacked an original conclusion, a bittersweet one ala Planet of the Apes, its as far I know directly conclude as in Wul’s pre-Cold War book. Laloux seems to sympathiwe with small animals in reality, reinforcing their grotesqueness against their plights, very much a movie here about the planet’s food chain, unsuitable to be watched whilst eating at the same time, Laloux possibly choice the English dubbing, its very good, the only thing he doses dabs his paint brush in is humour, that’s why all of his films make Grave of he Fireflies look sweetly grieve-stricken, this is utter dystopia here.
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