September 15th, 2008Fantastic Planet is a Fantasy
Kodos and I just watched Fantastic Planet (La Planète Sauvage), René Laloux’s 1973 Czech/French animated film about a future in which humans (here called Oms. Get it? Hommes/Oms? Uhhh.) are kept as pets by a giant race called the “Traag” or “Draag”, depending on whether you use the subtitles or the dubbing.
At first I thought the humans were meant to be the dogs of this society. Their subsequent treatment, frankly, made me feel a bit of remorse for the poor neutered puppy sitting next to me. Luckily, the metaphor flipped when the Traag started exterminating wild Om as vermin, making the Om more like, I guess, rats than dogs. So now I’m thinking of rats, and Kodos has wandered off somewhere.
So, anyway, Q.E.D., the Oms are the rats of this society. The Traag, on the other hand, are almost supernatural in their control over their environment, both technologically and spiritually.
Fantastic Planet is generally referred to as science fiction, but I’d classify it as fantasy. The way I see it, science fiction is when the science may be more or less advanced relative to current times, and perhaps a physical law or two may be broken here and there, but things just sort of “work” the way we’d expect them. That goes even if the setting is Vagra II. And the sole inhabitants are sentient oil slicks. And the oil slicks are pissy.
Fantasy, however, is based in a world which isn’t simply an extrapolation of our current world, but rather a re-imagining, where things simply don’t “work” the way we’d expect, even given a high level of technology. That analysis is pretty subjective, and I’d be interested in hearing how others draw the line.
But back to Fantastic Planet. Let’s do this in decreasing order from “excellent” to “meh”.
Both the story and the animation are really imaginative. I was expecting an oh-no-i-was-wrong-it-was-earth-all-along ending, but the plot fooled me with an unexpectedly dark climax followed by a disappointingly uplifting finale.
The artwork is a bit surreal. After reading my caveats, watch the trailer below to get a sample of the creative flora and fauna of this world. Keep in mind, though, that at times, the story is just a vehicle for the animation, so this one’s not for the plot-junkies. If animation’s your thing, Fantastic Planet has it in abundance.
The music dates the thing squarely in the 1970s, and during the girl-on-girl wrestling scene, the soundtrack went straight to porn. I didn’t want my neighbors thinking I was into that kind of porn, so I had to turn the volume way down. These are thin NYC walls, kids.
The subtitles are inexcusably bad. There are quite a few typos, (from simple misspellings to its/it’s confusion), and at first I couldn’t tell the typos from the perfectly cromulent words of this particular universe.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, the worst thing about Fantastic Planet. The trailer.
The story does have a plot, but the trailer makes it seem like the whole thing is told through imagery and symbolism. They minimized the music, stripped the scenes of context, and left you with a sparse, barren image of an otherwise accessible movie. Last and certainly worst is the narrator’s voice.
This woman needs to lay off the valium, seriously. In your flattest voice possible, say, “Fascinating. A Fine Adventure Story.” Now watch the trailer and see how a pro does it.
Fascinating. :-|
[This is your I-read-to-the-end bonus: On the DVD, there's a 10-minute short about giant snails causing mayhem, including a scene where one lures a little girl to her death by mimicking a cat. Hilarious.]
