Review of Fantastic Planet (1973) by Tor M — 09 Feb 2017

Known futuristic animation with a surreal and creative story, looks and presentation. The animation production started in Prague but was moved to Paris shortly after. Done in French - the language I used too. Not sure if a dubbed version would have lifted it or not.

Blue giants, known as "Draags" are ruling a planet and they take some human-ish creatures, known as "Oms" as slaves or pets or something. The Oms tries to get their freedom and there is a war going on between the two species. Who will win?

This film is all about letting your mind go and observe and digest the images. It's beautifully crafted. Great drawings, sweet creatures and imaginative like drugs where a must at the production and the result is an actual drug itself. For me the best part of the film was still the soundtrack done by Alain Goraguer. Trippy, soulful jazz - almost like triphop at times. Songs from this film has been sampled by loads of artists and it's easy to see (hear) why. The combination of dope music and extraordinary, sci-fi animation is superb - but even if the story is good too, I wanted even more. I missed some character development or some feelings towards a few characters. I felt like an observer, observing an entire society.

It's all right, but it feels like I missed out on many details that way and my attention fell at times. Still I would not have the lenght expanded. 70 minutes felt about right. I'm sure there is plenty of symbolism and metaphores here, but I don't get half of it. Fascinating, trippy, memorable and psychedelic film that's both disturbing and touching.

8 out of 10 rain cloud producing gadgets.