The Fantastic Planet (La Planète Sauvage) (1973)(go to SPAAAAACE)
reviewed by J. Kane
Trip-O-Meter: 8/10
A good sci-fi film immerses you in it's particular world, but few hold your head underwater as long as René Laloux's masterpiece, The Fantastic Planet. First off, it's a French cartoon about gigantic psychic blue people called Draags who rule a surreal, savage planet where humans (called Oms) are considered pests and routinely exterminated. Second off -- well, by now you should be gasping for air.
One Om, kept as a pet by these giant red-eyed monsters, escapes from his cage with a special bracelet that soaks knowledge directly into the head. Using this technology, he raises up a band of wild human beings to destroy their slave driving masters.
Almost every other scene is an elongated bit of nothing just to fuck with your head. Crystals form out of thin air, monsters eat and destroy everything, the Draags meditate and turn into abstract blobs and statues dance around floating spheres. It's bizarre and avant garde, sure, but it's also eye candy. If you like candy covered in scorpions.
The underlying themes, if there truly are any, get a bit preachy. We humans shouldn't be killing mice and cockroaches, should we? Well, it's hard to argue. Sure, human beings generally suck, but it's widely agreed we shouldn't kill exterminate each other like termites. Let's not be hypocrites.
Maybe this movie was also some metaphor for the Cold War, maybe not. How you read into it is up to. How The Fantastic Planet reads into you is not. I mean, look at this. Let's see Tim Burton or George Lucas top this.
BONUS! -- Check out one of Laloux's short films, Les Escargots (The Snails) for a similar, less depressing bite to absorb.
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