FANTASTIC PLANET Movie Review

La Planete Sauvage
Planet of Incredible Creatures
The Savage Planet

Czech graphic artist Roland Topor and French animator René Laloux adapted Stefan Wul's cautionary novel about interplanetary class struggles, Oms en Serie, into one of the most visually innovative animated features of the 1970s. The civilized Oms are living under the heel—literally—of their giant, 40-foot-tall masters, the Draags, and they have no other way to restore the dignity of their traditions but to rebel. Fantastic Planet (La Planète sauvage) runs just 72 minutes but feels padded; the graphic designs are quite wonderful, but the animation itself is limited and rigid. The flat English-language dubbing doesn't help, but the alternative of subtitling is something that distributors of animated films tend to be understandably leery of. It's an interesting attempt at a grown-up, progressive animated film, but dramatically it's as flat as the paper it was drawn on. (For an example of animation on a similar theme that is compelling, try to find Jacques Cardon's 7-minute, 1975 French short, Imprint.)

NEXT STOP … Twilight of the Cockroaches, Laputa: Castle in the SkyMy Neighbor Totoro

1973 (PG) 68m/C FR D: Roland Topor, Rene Laloux; W: Roland Topor, Steve Hayes, Rene Laloux; C: Boris Baromykin, Lubomir Rejthar; M: Alain Goraguer; V: Barry Bostwick. VHS VYY, MRV, SNC