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

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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

A

Film Rating (0-60):

60

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

Extras Rating (0-40):

39

60 + 39 =

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