Fantastic Planet (La Planète Sauvage, 1973)
How's this for an idea for a cartoon? Huge blue humanoid aliens called "Traags" with lidless red eyes and clothes that their boobs poke out of, capture humans and bring them to their planet, where they are treated like the helpless animals they are. They are literally playthings to the Traag's children, toyed with to death, or stomped on like bugs. The secret to salvation for the puny humans may be in figuring out the meditation and reproduction rituals of these centuries-old godlike monsters. Kind of a Hanna-Barbera thing, or more like a Pixar/Disney movie do you think? No, I suppose it would have to be written by French artists and animated in Eastern Europe, in the late 60s
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Fantastic Planet is supposed to be an allegory about the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia, a period of history no doubt important to those directly affected, but let's face it, obscure to most of us. But even without knowing that, it's clearly a statement about the way those with great power have always treated those with less power. You know: horribly.
The mouse-like humans are called "Oms" (aha! En Francais, "homme"). They scurry about gnawing holes in walls, being treated like pests or pets, depending on the whims of the Traags. If the film were made today, the Oms would be experimented on, made to have huge Traag ears, which look like fish fins, growing out of their backs.
Humans are pesky things, so it's only a matter of time before they irritate the Traags (by, you know, killing one) so much that they call the exterminator. The scene of the relentless "De-om-ing" by increasingly frightening and impersonal methods is genuinely chilling.
Where Fantastic Planet really succeeds is in depicting a world which is truly alien. The landscape and the beings that inhabit it are, like no other science fiction or fantasy film, completely original. There are very few moments in the film that feel familiar--the terror of the helpless Oms is that much more easy to identify with. There's a sinister Dr. Seuss feeling to some of the landscape, and it seems clear that Fantastic Planet was a strong influence on the dreamlike comics of Jim Woodring, though Mr. Woodring doesn't see it that way. In any case, if the goal of a fantasy film is to transport the viewer, consider it done.
The DVD contains an earlier short animated film called "Les Ecargot," by the same artistic team. If anything, I may like it even better, because, after all, it's about how watering your crops with tears can lead to a plague of giant killer snails.
.
Fantastic Planet is supposed to be an allegory about the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia, a period of history no doubt important to those directly affected, but let's face it, obscure to most of us. But even without knowing that, it's clearly a statement about the way those with great power have always treated those with less power. You know: horribly.
The mouse-like humans are called "Oms" (aha! En Francais, "homme"). They scurry about gnawing holes in walls, being treated like pests or pets, depending on the whims of the Traags. If the film were made today, the Oms would be experimented on, made to have huge Traag ears, which look like fish fins, growing out of their backs.
Humans are pesky things, so it's only a matter of time before they irritate the Traags (by, you know, killing one) so much that they call the exterminator. The scene of the relentless "De-om-ing" by increasingly frightening and impersonal methods is genuinely chilling.
Where Fantastic Planet really succeeds is in depicting a world which is truly alien. The landscape and the beings that inhabit it are, like no other science fiction or fantasy film, completely original. There are very few moments in the film that feel familiar--the terror of the helpless Oms is that much more easy to identify with. There's a sinister Dr. Seuss feeling to some of the landscape, and it seems clear that Fantastic Planet was a strong influence on the dreamlike comics of Jim Woodring, though Mr. Woodring doesn't see it that way. In any case, if the goal of a fantasy film is to transport the viewer, consider it done.
The DVD contains an earlier short animated film called "Les Ecargot," by the same artistic team. If anything, I may like it even better, because, after all, it's about how watering your crops with tears can lead to a plague of giant killer snails.