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Features: DVD
Rene Laloux's mesmerising psychedelic sci-fi animated feature won the Special Jury Prize at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival and is a landmark of European animation. Based on Stefan Wul's novel Oms en serie (Oms by the Dozen), Laloux's breathtaking vision was released in France as La Planete sauvage (The Savage Planet); in the USA as Fantastic Planet; and immediately drew comparisons to Swift's Gulliver's Travels and Planet of the Apes (both the 1968 film and Boule's 1963 novel). Today, the film can be seen to prefigure much of the work of Hayao Miyazaki at Studio Ghibli (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away) due to its palpable political and social concerns, cultivated imagination, and memorable animation techniques. Fantastic Planet tells the story of "Oms", a human-like species, kept as domesticated pets by an alien race of blue giants called "Draags". The story takes place on the Draags' planet Ygam, where we follow our narrator, an Om called Terr, from infancy to adulthood. He manages to escape enslavement from a Draag learning device used to educate the savage Oms - and begins to organise an Om revolt. The imagination invested in the surreal creatures, music and sound design, and eerie landscapes, is immense and unforgettable. This release includes the early Laloux short The Snails.
"...a film to see and to hear and to treasure...[a] unique film experience..." DVD Outsider
"...a provocative foray into the psychology of state-sponsored terror...difficult to watch any scene without being aware of its symbolic and metaphorical potential..." Senses of Cinema
Editor's Note
FANTASTIC PLANET is Rene Laloux's bizarre, enthralling adaptation of Stefan Wul's allegorical science-fiction novel. The eye-popping underground sensation was also a critical success, winning awards at several prestigious film festivals (most notably, the Grand Prix in 1973 at Cannes). Set on the planet Ygam, the film depicts a world in which Draags--a gigantic race of blue alien beings--run the show. Their pets are human beings--or, as they are known in Laloux's world, Oms--who are mistreated by their devious owners. Fed up with the abuse, one Om organizes his brethren and stages a mutiny that will forever change life on Ygam.Laloux's film blends 1960s ideologies with 1970s technology to create a work that profoundly impacted animators all over the world. In creating a troubled universe dominated by the soulless, conformist Draags, FANTASTIC PLANET rejects that notion and embraces the concept of individuality. A troubled political climate forced Laloux and fellow collaborator Roland Torpor (screenwriter of Roman Polanski's 1976 thriller THE TENANT) to relocate to Paris from Prague in order to finish the film. Fortunately, they were able to do so, leaving audiences with this startling animated achievement.
| Features | Fantastic Laloux: The New 26 Minute Documentary On Director Rene Laloux | | An Animated Segment Of Sean Lennon's Music Video For Would I Be The One, Inspired By Fantastic Planet | | Audio: French Dolby Digital Stereo | | Interactive Menus | | Laloux's Early Animated Short Les Escargots (The Snails), A Horror Story Of A Town Overrun By Gigantic Snails | | Photo Gallery | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English | | Trailer |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Facets Multimedia |
| Release Date: 10/23/2007 |
| Original Release Date: 1973 | | Catalog ID: 94805 | | UPC: 00736899110925 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: French | | Available Audio Tracks: English Dubbed, French | | Available Subtitles: English | | Video: Color |
| Cast & Crew | Alain Goraguer - Original Music By | | Boris Baromykin - Cinematographer | | Helene Arnal - Editor | | Jean Topart - Voice Of | | Jean Valmont - Voice Of | | Jennifer Drake - Voice Of | | Lubomir Rejthar - Cinematographer | | Rene Laloux - Screenplay | | Rene Laloux - Director | | Roger Corman, et. al. - Producer | | Roland Topor - Screenplay | | Stefan Wul - Based On Novel By | | Sylvie Lenoir - Voice Of |
| Awards |
Winner (1973) | | | Cannes Film Festival, Rene Laloux, Special Award | |
Nominee (1973) | | | Cannes Film Festival, Rene Laloux, Golden Palm Award |
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| | Professional Reviews | Los Angeles Times
"...Disquieting, eerie and vastly imaginative..." 10/09/1998 p.C18Sight and Sound
"With an animation style based around cut-out elements and camera dissolves, Laloux and his team create a woozily hallucinatory feel..." 10/01/2006 p.88 The Onion A.V. Club 8 of 10
Animation became big business again in the late '80s, and ever since, it's become less and less likely that there'll be another full-length animated feature quite as weird as Rene Laloux's underground 1973 French classic La Planete Sauvage (Fantastic Planet). Drawn with sharp details in warm pastel colors, the movie is just the kind of hippie allegory--and trippy visual experience--that the '60s often produced. Fantastic Planet, adapted from a novel by Stefan Wul, was inspired by the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Russians in the late '60s...Available for the first time in years and now presented in widescreen, Laloux's film, which won the 1973 Cannes Grand Prix Prize, is a welcome respite from slick Disney product and countless shoddy imitators. Started in Prague but completed, due to political pressure, in Paris, Fantastic Planet uses an accessible medium to show the evils of propaganda and express the need for individuality. Laloux's vision of a Dali-meets-Krazy Kat alien landscape populated by twisted creatures is quite striking, even if the film's psychedelic elements haven't exactly aged well. - Joshua Klein
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