#820: LALOUX, René: Fantastic Planet (1973)

LALOUX, René (France)
Fantastic Planet [1973]
Spine #820
Blu-ray

Nothing else has ever looked or felt like director René Laloux's animated marvel Fantastic Planet, a politically minded and visually inventive work of science fiction. The film is set on a distant planet calle Ygam, where enslaved humans (Oms) are the playthings of giant blue native inhabitants (Draags). After Terr, kept as a pet since infancy, escapes from his gigantic child captor, he is swept up by a band of radical fellow Oms who are resisting the Draags' oppression and violence. With its eerie, coolly surreal cutout animation by Roland Topor; brilliant psychedelic jazz score by Alain Goraguer; and wondrous creatures and landscapes, this Cannes-awarded 1973 counterculture classic is a perennially compelling statement against conformity and violence.

72 minutes
Color
Monaural
in French
1:66:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2016
Director/Writers


From the novel Ons en série by Stefan Wul.
Adaptation, screenplay, and dialogue by Roland Topor and René Laloux.
Laloux was 44 when he directed Fantastic Planet.

The Film


The Extras

The Booklet

Eight-page panel foldout poster featuring an essay by critic Michael Brooke.

Commentary

None.

Two early short films

By director Laloux and illustrator Topor: Les temps morts (1965) and Les escargots (1966).

Laloux sauvage

A 2009 documentary on Laloux.

Episode

Of the French television program Raliques from 1974 about Topor’s work.

Interview

With Topor from 1973.

Trailer

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