Directed by René Laloux. Directed by Roland Topor and René Laloux
Closer to science fantasy than science fiction, Fantastic Planet is proof human imagination exists on a commercial scale. Calling its world and elements original is an understatement, and the production of this 70-minute epic of enslaved human-like beings on a planet ruled by gargantuan blue beings is a fresh experience to this day.
Its premise is perhaps its least imaginative aspect, as humans are something akin to rats: kept as pets by some members of the indigenous species, but largely thought of as pests, albeit cute. Tiny in stature, they’re essentially playthings, and knowledge of science and languages are kept from them, until one human escapes with a headband that transmits small educational bulletins. Armed with mind-expanding ideas and knowhow, a civilization rises up, and civil war looms.
This certainly reads like a thinly-veiled criticism of mankind’s relationship with every other living thing on this planet before it settles into its more familiar story of rebellion, but around it all, imagination swirls like a sandstorm.
Crazy-looking creatures and plants do their thing, each as fascinating as the next, and Fantastic Planet treats all of it, literally, as scenery. There’s just too much going on for the movie to dwell on its own inventions and it makes for a spellbinding bit of worldbuilding not limited by overbearing explanations that want to pin everything, both film and viewer, to the ground. Laloux lets his audience take in the world he has built, and your imagination repays two-fold.
It gives everything a true sense of adventure and while the guardrails of Fantastic Planet does produce a fairly familiar plotline, everything going on within those limits makes it a novel experience. There’s mystery in the unfamiliar, intrigue in mystery, and as long as a movie keeps offering you new things to take onboard, that intrigue doesn’t fade.
Something else to appreciate: the unique art style. Mainstream animation boils down to Studio Ghibli, DreamWorks and Pixar/Disney, each with their own way of doing things, but their dominance has homogenized the visual product. Fantastic Planet doesn’t look like anything else, and it’s far from cutesy. It can be downright disturbing at times, but equally funny, whimsical, or stunning.
Yes, there are details missing from Fantastic Planet, like its sound design being a little shallow, relying on sparse sound effects and a prog rock/jazzy score to accompany its visual outpouring, the density of the latter highlighting the former; or its ending, which has the brevity of Poochie’s send-off on The Simpsons, but these are just scattered weeds in a splendorous garden. They are easily overlooked in favor of the wacky, wondrous, unsettling and daring moves Laloux’ movie offers.
Mikkel Frederiksen 