La Planète Sauvage

''Fantastic Planet'' (; , ) is a 1973 animated science fiction film directed by René Laloux. Its allegorical story, about humans living on a strange planet dominated by giant humanoid aliens who consider them animals, is based on the 1957 novel '' Oms en série'' by the French writer Stefan Wul. The film was written by Laloux and Roland Topor; the latter also made the production design. It was an co-production between companies from France and Czechoslovakia and was animated at Jiří Trnka Studio in Prague.

A working title while in development was ''Sur la planète Ygam'' (''On the Planet Ygam''), which is where most of the story takes place; the actual title (''The Fantastic/Savage Planet'') is the name of Ygam's moon. Production began in 1963. ''Fantastic Planet'' was awarded the Grand Prix special jury prize at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, and in 2016, it was ranked the 36th greatest animated movie ever by ''Rolling Stone''.

Plot

In the distant future, the gargantuan blue humanoid Draags have brought human beings (who are called Oms) from Earth to the planet Ygam, where the Draags maintain a technologically and spiritually advanced society. The Draags consider Oms animals, and while they keep some as pets, others live in the wilderness and are periodically slaughtered by the Draags to control their population. Draags have much longer lifespans than Oms, but reproduce much less.

When an Om mother is tortured to death by three Draag children, her orphaned infant is found by Master Sinh, a key Draag leader, and his daughter Tiwa, who keeps the boy as a pet and names him Terr. Tiwa loves Terr and is careful not to hurt him, but, in accordance with her parents' instructions, gives him a collar with which she can pull him in any direction. She brings Terr to sessions in which she receives her education using a headset that transmits knowledge into her mind; a defect in Terr's collar allows him to receive the knowledge too. Around the time that Tiwa grows into her teens and first performs Draag meditation, which allows the species to travel with their minds, she loses some interest in Terr, who has become a young man and acquired much Draag knowledge. He escapes into the wilderness, stealing Tiwa's headset.

There he runs into a wild female Om, who cuts off his collar and introduces him to her tribe, which lives in an abandoned Draag park full of strange creatures and landscapes. Terr shows them how to use the headset to acquire Draag knowledge and literacy, winning the right to do so in a duel. The literacy they gain allows them to read a Draag announcement that the park will be purged of Oms, and, when the purge comes, some are slaughtered by Draag technology while others escape, joining forces with another tribe. They are attacked by two Draag passers-by and manage to kill one of them before escaping to an abandoned Draag rocket depot, much to the outrage of Draag leaders.

They live there for years, joined by many other Oms. Due to the knowledge acquired from Terr's headset, they manage to replicate Draag technology, including two rockets; they hope to leave Ygam for its moon, the Fantastic Planet, and live there safe from Draags. When a large-scale Draag purge hits the depot and many Oms are slaughtered, a group led by Terr uses the rockets to flee to the Fantastic Planet, where they discover large statues that Draags travel to during meditation and use to meet beings from other galaxies in a strange mating ritual that maintains their species. The Oms destroy some of the statues, threatening the Draags' existence; the genocide of Oms is halted on Ygam, and, facing a crisis, the Draags negotiate for peace. The Oms agree to leave the Fantastic Planet to the Draags for their meditations, and in return, an artificial satellite is put into orbit around Ygam and given to the Oms as a new home. This leads to an era of peaceful coexistence between the two species, who now benefit from each other's way of thinking.

Voice cast

Additional voices

*French: Sylvie Lenoir, Max Amyl, Denis Boileau (Dragg), Michèle Chahan, Hubert de Lapparent, Claude Joseph, Philippe Ogouz, Jacques Ruisseau, Madeleine Clervannes, William Coryn, Poupy de Monneron, Christian de Tillière, Christian Echelard, Jeanine Forney, Pascal Kominakis, Andre Lambert, Serge Netter, Yvette Robin, André Rouyer, Irina Tarason, Julien Thomas, Gilbert Vilhon, Paul Villé
*English: Nora Heflin, Marvin Miller (Great Tree Chief, Master Kon), Monika Ramirez, Janet Waldo (Hollow Log Chief)

Soundtrack

The film's score was composed by Alain Goraguer. In a review for AllMusic, François Couture noted:

The soundtrack was originally pressed on vinyl during the mid-70s in France. These original pressings command a high price on the secondary market given the soundtrack's limited release. In 2000, DC Recordings released the soundtrack on CD, and the soundtrack was later reissued on LP.

Track listing

Interpretations

The film's narrative has been considered to be an allegory about animal rights and human rights as well as racism. Sean Axmaker of Turner Classic Movies referred to the film as "nothing if not allegorical", writing that "it's not a stretch to see the fight against oppression reflected in the civil rights struggle in the United States, the French in Algeria, apartheid in South Africa, and (when injustice takes a turn to wholesale annihilation of the 'inferior' race) the Holocaust itself".

Liz Ohanesian of ''LA Weekly'' speculated on the film being a commentary on animal rights, using the Draag's treatment of the Oms as evidence and writing that the film places "humans in roles of pets and pests". Mike D'Angelo of ''The A.V. Club'' wrote that "The Draag-Om dynamic is broad enough to be multipurpose, reflecting both racism via 'How would ''you'' like it?' role reversal".

Reception and legacy

Box office

The film was reported to have a total of 809,945 admissions in France.

Critical response

''Fantastic Planet'' has received generally positive reviews. On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 91% based on 35 reviews with an average rating of 7.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads "''Fantastic Planet'' is an animated epic that is by turns surreal and lovely, fantastic and graceful".

Howard Thompson of ''The New York Times'' wrote that the film offers "original, thoughtful, often strong (but tasteful) animation". Kevin Thomas of the ''Los Angeles Times'' called it "disquieting, eerie and vastly imaginative." Gene Siskel of the ''Chicago Tribune'', on the other hand, gave the film one-and-a-half stars out of four and called it "an animated piece of science-fiction pretending to be a Meaningful Statement … According to publicists for the film, the visuals and story begin to make sense if your mind is chemically altered. I doubt it."

Among retrospective reviews, Carson Lund of ''Slant Magazine'' gave the film a score of three-and-a-half out of five possible stars, writing that "by the film's conclusion, it's hard to feel comfortable with similar episodes on our own imperfect planet". Mike D'Angelo of ''The A.V. Club'' gave the film a rating of "B+", writing that "''Fantastic Planet'' houldseem extremely dated, yet it's ultimately too singular to feel beholden to a particular era. It truly earns the adjective in its title". Alan Morrison of ''Empire'' gave the film four out of five stars and called it "Surreal and wonderful in a way not often seen from Europe".

Maitland McDonagh of ''TV Guide'' gave the film three out of four stars, calling it an "Eerie, surreal and a welcome respite from Disney-style animation". Scott Thill of ''Wired'' called the film "a sterling example of the trippy animation ambition of the late '60s and early '70s". Gary Dauphin of ''The Village Voice'' wrote that "Although the visuals are worth the ticket alone, ''Fantastic Planet'' also crackles with emotional and political resonance". Paul Trandahl of Common Sense Media gave the film a rating of four out of five stars, calling the film "A jarring examination of racism and intolerance". In 2016, ''Fantastic Planet'' was ranked the 36th greatest animated movie ever by ''Rolling Stone''.

The film was used as inspiration in designing the world of the video game '' Pikmin''. In 1996, the alternative rock band Failure. named their third album after the film. In 2014, rapper Mac Miller used the soundtrack of the film in his song "Insomniak" included on his mixtape '' Faces''. Hip-hop artist Madlib cites the movie as an influence.

Accolades

The film won the Special Prize at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival.

Home media

Following various bootleg VHS releases of the film, it was released by Anchor Bay Entertainment on VHS and DVD on 16 February 1999. In 2006, Eureka Entertainment released the film on DVD in the United States as #34 in their Masters of Cinema line. It was released on Blu-ray in 2012.

On 23 October 2007, Facets Video and Accent Cinema released a newly restored version on DVD, including many bonus features never available before. In June 2016, the Criterion Collection released the film on Blu-ray and DVD.

See also

* List of cult films

Notes

References

External links

*
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Links to further resources

Link to Masters Of Cinema''Fantastic Planet: Gambous Amalga''
an essay by Michael Brooke at the Criterion Collection

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1970s dystopian films
1973 films
1970s French animated films
1970s avant-garde and experimental films
Czech avant-garde and experimental films
French avant-garde and experimental films
Animated films based on French novels
Animated films about extraterrestrial life
Czech animated science fiction films
French-language Czech films
Fantastic art
Existentialist films
Films based on science fiction novels
Animated films set on fictional planets
French animated science fiction films
Films directed by René Laloux
Animated films about giants
Animated films about racism
Surrealist films
1970s stop-motion animated films
Animated films set in the future
Films scored by Alain Goraguer
Films produced by Anatole Dauman
Cutout animation films
Stefan Wul
Films with screenplays by Roland Topor
1970s French-language films
French adult animated films
Czech adult animated films
French independent films
Czech independent films
1973 independent films
Independent animated films
1973 science fiction films
1973 fantasy films
Animated science fantasy films
Adult animated science fiction films
1973 animated films