La planète sauvage

Plot synopsis:
The film depicts a future in which human beings, known as "Oms" (a word play on the French-language word hommes, meaning men), have been brought by the giant Draags to the Draags' home planet, where they are kept as pets (with collars). The Draags are an alien race which is humanoid in shape but a hundred times larger than humans, with blue skin, fan-like earlobes and huge, protruding red eyes. The Draags also live much longer than human beings one Draag week equals a human year. Some Oms are domesticated as pets, but others run wild, and are periodically exterminated. The Draags' treatment of the Oms is ironically contrasted with their high level of technological and spiritual development.The story opens with a woman running, occasionally looking behind her as if pursued. An enormous hand descends and blocks her way. She runs back the way she came and finds her way blocked by another hand. It becomes apparent that she is being toyed with by entities that do not appreciate her fragility, and as she dies, the infant she has been carrying and attempting to protect begins to cry.The view changes to reveal the Draag children who have accidentally killed the woman; they leave quickly when an adult Draag and child approach. The child voices concern for the orphaned infant, and the two take the child to their home. Tiva (the Draag child) names the infant Terr (word play on "terrible", same spelling in French; also a homophone for the French "Terre", meaning Earth). Her father, whom the adult Terr voice-over explains is master Sinh, the Draag great Aedile, attaches a collar capable of physically dragging Terr back from mischief, and over the next several scenes, their relationships develop.Terr witnesses the parents seemingly ingesting food by inhaling it from a device. After changing Terr's costume as one would a doll's, Tiva uses makeup to give herself a more Om-like appearance. When Terr impishly trades dark pigment for light, Tiva blows some of the powder on him. Tiva uses a tiny indoor weather-maker to cause a small storm cloud to form over Terr and chase him around the dwelling. Tiva takes Terr for a walk, and then teaches him how, under certain circumstances, crystals will form on stationary objects, including standing bipeds. She also teaches him that whistling will shatter the crystals. Terr happens upon master Sinh as he and several compatriots are melding in a ritual, and it is revealed that many Draag children have Oms like Terr when they convene to watch their respective Oms interact.Tiva's education is supplied by the use of a headset that transmits knowledge directly into the brain of the user. Because she enjoys having Terr in her hand when she is having her "infos," Terr begins to acquire their knowledge.Meanwhile, at the seat of government, Draag Councilors discuss whether the regular extermination of the wild Oms is sufficient to keep their numbers at an acceptable level. It is revealed that Oms were first found on a planet that retained some evidence of structured life, but the images seem to reveal that Earth was in a post-apocalyptic state at the time.Terr decides to escape, and to take the headset with him. He does not get very far before Tiva realizes he is missing, and her mother tells her to use her bracelet to bring him back. Terr finds himself suddenly being dragged backward by the collar. Only the headset becoming entangled in plants allows a wild female Om to come to his rescue before he is choked by the collar or dragged all the way back.When Terr explains that the headset contains the knowledge of the Draags but he doesn't know where to go with it, his unnamed rescuer takes him to her tribe, who live in a tree in a walled park. When it is demonstrated that Terr can read Draag script, the leader (known only as "Mighty One") is willing to accept Terr into the tribe, but the Wizard is not, and demands a trial by combat to the death. Terr and the Wizard's champion have child-sized animals bound to their torsos in such a way as to prevent the combatants from using anything but the beaks of said animals to attack. Terr is injured, but wins the trial.Over the next several scenes, it is shown how the Oms have adapted to life on the Draags' planet. Snail-like animals weave clothes onto the Oms, predators that would eat Oms are in turn hunted and efficiently stripped of useful materials, and the gene pool is kept well-mixed. Oms even make the occasional foray into Draag areas in search of resources. Returning from one such expedition, the group of adventurers is accosted by "bandits" who drop clawlike harpoons into the cargo and simply lift it up into their own tree. Mighty One tells Terr that they live on the other side of the park, and cautions him that they are evil.When the now-literate Oms read the new sign on one of the walls, they realize the park is about to be "de-Omised." Terr decides that he must take this information to the tribe of "bandits," and is quickly captured and taken before their leader, a wizened old woman.The woman is skeptical of Terr's claims. Terr is tied up and left. But when the de-Omising begins, the old woman returns and frees him. The de-Omising is accomplished using disks that release a poison gas. A great many Oms perish to this gas, but a sizable number still manage to escape through a crack in the park wall.Two passing Draags witness the exodus, and one begins crushing the Oms underfoot. The Oms retaliate and manage to bring down one of their attackers, but Mighty One is also killed, and the old woman leads the survivors to a place where she believes they will be safe. The death of a Draag puts the Council in an uproar. De-Omising is stepped up to a much higher priority, new technologies are developed, and frequency is scheduled to increase.The old woman has led the two now-united tribes to an old rocket depot. Applying their newfound knowledge, the Oms, seemingly under Terr's direction, very quickly adapt the abandoned technologies to their own purposes and begin to flourish, thanks to the rebirth of mechanized industry. On a visit to the old woman, Terr's former rescuer hears her express both optimism and regret that she will not live to see the Oms finally find peace.Fatalities resulting from Draag attempts to de-Om the rocket depot are minimized by the creation and organized use of shelters, but the Draags' updated de-Omising technologies become ever more aggressive, and when an automated scout detects the persistent Om settlement, it summons an array of lethal devices.As the attacks become more diverse and effective, the Oms launch their manned rockets toward the Fantastic Planet, where they discover headless statues. As bubbles descend to alight atop the statues, the statues begin to dance. Each bubble seems to contain an image of an individual Draag in meditation; their "spirits" are what animate the statues.It turns out that the statues facilitate "nuptial rites" between the Draags and entities from other galaxies, and from these, the Draags draw their life force. When the feet of the dancing statues threaten the rockets, the Oms use energy weapons that shatter the statues. Pandemonium reigns supreme in the Council chamber, for it seems the two races will destroy one another if they cannot find a way to live together.But in the very next scene, an Om steps down off an outstretched Draag hand, removes his silly hat and assumes a posture of confidence and self-assertion. The headset voice dispassionately recounts the Oms' construction of a new satellite where they can live, "which they call Terr, after their ancestral planet ."

Tags: cult, avant garde, psychedelic, atmospheric, satire

Review:
Although I appreciate animations like Finding Nemo or the Incredibles for they represent a renewal of the genre (in the same way the Disney movie did in the 50's), the artistic style of La Planete Sauvage is unmistakable and accords perfectly with the dark atmosphere of the movie.
They become tired of the treatment they suffer at the hands of the alien race, and seek to exact revenge on their captors.This movie was made nearly 30 years ago, so the animation is not really comparable to modern-day animation, but the story and the plot transcend time.
The premise of the film is as valid today as it was in the 70s.The DVD edition of the movie comes with three additional animated shorts by Rene Laloux, and they are just as entertaining.
Mix Dali surreal landscapes, Bosch architecture and fauna/flora creatures, add a hint of 19th century botanical drawings, slowly pour some Pink Floyd-ish music, and whisk all energetically with a fat-free faux-mythological metaphorical story, and you have The Savage Planet, which is the original title of the movie in French.The story is very interesting and has many possible interpretations and readings: the role of humans in Nature, cohabitation and coexistence of different species and political systems, what makes different species superior and savage, among others.
Its about a planet called Ygam, where human-like creatures called Oms live as pets for a race of blue giants known as the Traags.
First, the mise-en-scene is quite imaginative with absolutely surreal environments that I think owe a lot to the imagery of Monty Python; nothing wrong in copying – everybody does it, anyway.Second, it's a fairly simple story about the oppression and exploitation of the masses in a fantastic society somewhere in the cosmos.
Cameron, of course, reversed the oppressed-oppressor roles of humanity and the blue giants for his story.Moreover, here's a way-out thought: being a French production and seeing as how the French just love Hollywood westerns, I was amused to see the 'outlaw' Oms run for cover to a tiny hole in a wall – a long, blank, gigantic solid wall – much like how the real Butch Cassidy and his outlaws retreated to what was known as The Hole-in-the-Wall Gang hideout in the late nineteenth century.
I am a huge fan of animated movies and I love Fantastic Planet.
But like any good allegory, it works as a statement on any struggle to topple a giant.The art and animation are superb, filled with more detail and imagination than any ten standard animated films (the works of Miyazaki excluded).It isn't perfect, of course.
The concepts hold true even now, in 2014!I have to say that I have been thinking of writing a story about humans treated as pets by an alien culture, but after I've seen this I couldn't possibly do it, as it is perfect as storyline and concepts.
So, in my mind, to add valid philosophical and moral points to an already brilliant story with fantastic drawings is like covering the icing of the cake with a ton of cherries!About the animation style.
It succeeds because of a constant, virtuoso tension between concept and execution, and as such, the beauty of the film is its refusal to give in to your expectations.Fantastic Planet sees mankind acting as either mere pets or vermin to a colossal race of blue humanoids.
Add to that a dreamy score by Alain Goraguer and you end up with a film that, when it's unnerving you, is just balls-to-the-wall trippy.Over 40 years on, it is still refreshing to behold a film that sits at the polar opposite of the lushness of a Miyazaki or Disney, one that possibly jump-started the era of animation as a medium of ideas that would later give us the likes of Ghost in the Shell and Jin Roh. An enduring masterpiece, well worth the watch!.
Yes, to throw a word as big and all-encompassing like that is tricky, Fantastic Planet qualifies as some kind of weird artistic feat of surrealism and pure science fiction.
It's like a strange revelation that won't leave your mind.And yes, leave no mistake, it also works very well as a "stoner movie", one of those ridiculously warped visions that goes into the world of the imagination so heavily, with tangential moments in scenes (the 'blending' of the Draags in one scene, the constant flow of various monsters, the 'mating' ritual, the de-Oming), with a soundtrack that's like a outstanding, unlikely collaboration between Isaac Hayes and Pink Floyd (you don't know whether it'll split into Dark Side or Shaft).
The director Rene Laloux, along with collaborators like Roland Topor, creates a world unequivocally unto itself, where there are real strokes with pencils and colors and inks, where it seems very much like a collection of pictures from some obscure European fable book for kids, only loaded with some kind of life-force that moves like no other animated film (maybe it's slightest, closest-distant relative is Yellow Submarine, which is still a stretch).
Characters move in and out occasionally like a Terry Gilliam short- giant hand and other objects placed in almost jokingly, which makes it a lot of fun at times- and there's something eerie in Laloux's dedication to pushing the expectation-level, mainly because, as noted, we haven't seen this style before.
I remember the first time i saw"Fantastic Planet".It was December of 1986 on the USA Network.It was part of a saturday night kids show double feature with"Yellow Submarine".Needless to say i was very young at that time,i thought it was weird and fun at the same time.I did'nt see it again until 10 years later in 1996 i rented it and loved every minute of it.I still see it once and a while on midnight cult TV showings on KQED or KOFY.I wish HBO showed it at least 2 or 3 times a month.The film is kind of an animated "Planet Of The Apes",it follows a little part of the same plot idea.Aliens dominating humans in the future works very well in some cases and this is one of them.Barry Bostwick narrates this film,ironically since it's a french film.All in all,"Fantastic Planet"is classic cult animated film that should be shown on TV alot.I give it a 8 of 10..
i remember seeing this movie for the first time in the mid 80s, on USA network's late-night show called 'night flights' (the predecessor to USA's up all night), where they would show new-wave music videos and juxtapose them with cult movies like the fantastic planet or ringo star's cave man.
This animated film is a feast of imagination, filled with bizarre images and creatures....but, like most mainly visual films, it cannot sustain your complete attention, even for only 70 minutes.
Most other science fiction films, animated or otherwise, stop so far below Fantastic Planet.
Since I love mystical animation my intrigue led me to watch this full length feature.Cool animation cannot save this story due to an incoherent plot with inexplicable characters, creepy-cool creatures and surreal imagery.
I had no memory of a story, or of people, or of dialogue; just strange creatures.Having just watched it again, I see there's this whole story with giants and transported earthlings, and a tale of struggle, but I probably will forget all that again, because it's so less memorable than the incredibly strange and imaginative details of a very unique world.As for the story, well, it's pretty interesting.
As a human, one's sympathy is natural with the humans, but I wouldn't say the giants were evil; to them, humans are pretty much like rodents are to us, and while they think the humans might be intelligent, or at least their ancestors were, they aren't sure.The more allegorical elements feel a little flat, and the English dub suffers from weak acting, and if you're used to Pixar and Disney, the very simple animation can sometimes seem a little underwhelming, but the imagination is so strong that no fan of animation should miss this..
Fantastic Planet is a French-Czechoslovakian animated science fiction film.
Personally, I highly recommend this movie to anybody who loves surrealist art, animation, or or who simply wants to see a much more different animated film than most that come out..
What I had only perceived at first as a very conventional tale of struggle between races for independence and power is also the start of more thoughts about other layers of interpretation, some maybe only in my imagination but still interesting to pursue in their own right, which is a lot more than your average Hollywood sci-fi big budget production can provoke.The extermination scenes with the big ball squashing humans like ants were very distressing for me as they echoed other, very ugly and real scenes from WWII I had seen before.
We must sometimes stop reasoning only in terms of function and enjoy what makes us human, not just efficient commercial-minded robots ("the focus group indicates maximum joy at this scene!" eeech.)This story is based on a french sci-fi novel called "Oms en série" by Stefan Wul. The music is good, typical of it's time and adds to the overall sense of watching something slightly odd from the 1970s.
However the world depicted is great in originality and beats Alice in wonderland.It is a growing up story of an 'om' who becomes a great man, in a world where they are oppressed and become free (btw, om in French sounds like homme which means man or human).This cartoon has everything that makes Sci-Fi great and that is often missing in Hollywood blockbuster Sci-Fi movies: - Great imagination - Strong multi-level social message (i.e. not simplistic) - Lessons to learn - A great personal adventure of an ordinary anti-herothat turns great - An outworldly experience - An original story - Fairy tale like storytelling quality - No simplistic 'good vs evil' judgemental messagethat leads to unreasonable hatred and feuding - A message to step back and take time to understand a situationand understand the others.This cartoon is a reference in the genre..
I don't know that I've ever seen a science fiction film set on a world which feels so completely alien.
There was never a point while I was watching Fantastic Planet where I felt, "Yeah, I think I've got the gist of it now." Laloux seems to take great pleasure in filling every frame of this film with some new strange creation.
Masters Of Cinema Cast - Episode 5 - Rene Laloux's Fantastic PlanetIts not often you can say 'I have never seen anything like that before' come the end of a given film.
Laloux didn't have 3D or CGI at his disposal in 1971; just some extremely talent cartoon artists a seriously funky score and some extremely crazy ideas and still manages to leave jaws on the floor.It maybe easy to dismiss Fantastic Planet as some post Hippy movement nonsense complete with psychedelic imagery barely concealable political allegories and although it maybe very much a product of its time it remains a compelling and indeed visionary oddity.In this episode we dig into why this film maybe of interest and try not to lose ourselves down the rabbit hole by thinking too much about it....http://moccast.blogspot.no/2013/05/episode-five-fantastic-planet.html.
The script, too, is masterful, investigating the plight of human beings (called Oms) as pets in a world dominated by giants of superior intellect called the Traag, who live artistic and meditative lives on a planet populated by unusually beautiful and dangerous flora and fauna.
It's also a low- budget animated film, so don't expect even Hannah-Barbara level production values.However, if you're interested in some trippy, hippy spins on weirdo-70s alien lifeforms - sweater barfing tribbles, giant anteater bats, seasons that are marked by crystals growing on your body, etc., then check it out.
There has been a plethora of adult animated movies in the 1970's, RalphBakshi et al, and many of them have become perennial cult classics.Rene Laloux is the French director of 1973's French/Czechoslovakian masterpiece "Fantastic Planet" and Roland Topor is the animator.
The plot is simplistic and predictable, but the level of artistic and scientific imagination in the construction of a truly alien world puts this film up there with the best of science fiction.
A tour de force of exobiology, one could only imagine what modern filmmakers could do by porting _Fantastic Planet's_ ideas into a live-action film with digital imagery.The laserdisc has both French and English dialogue tracks (and it's subtitled) but the score and monaural soundtrack leave much to be desired, and I find this film is best enjoyed by watching with the sound turned off..
I originally watched this film because it was a strange looking animated film that attracted my attention in a weird sort of way.
Maybe I just haven't seen enough movies, but the whole feel and art style of the film was quite unique to me.
The story (based on the novel The Savage Planet by Stefan Wul) is wonderful, the animation and directing is excellent, the music is hauntingly strange!
I remember watching this on TV as a kid and I was mezmerized by the story of these people being controlled by these giant aliens and having a strange feeling like this has happened in the past before..and I couldn't stop watching.
A film where humans are merely pets and insects to a more advanced, giant race of alien beings.
Nowadays, the film is regarded as a cult classic by film and animation aficionados alike, and while I don't regard it as a great film, I do admire it nonetheless.The film centers around the planet Ygam where humans, referred to as Oms, are an inferior species to the large blue android like Draags.
The character animation is pretty limited, but the unique visual style really helps the film stick out from any other, so it fits well enough in this environment.
I know this film is meant to focus more on the allegories of racism and the trippy visuals, but a little more character development would be nice.Nevertheless, Fantastic Planet is a very distinct and worthwhile experience that you only see once in a blue moon.
Sure, the characters aren't all that interesting and the plot can get a little slow sometimes, but the way the film tells its story of prejudice through bizarre animation and psychedelic ideologies makes the film quite a unique feature that is worthy of its cult status.
Fantastic Planet is an animated science fiction not for casual audiences nor for anyone looking to kill some time.
From its cut-out, paper-doll animation; to its ugly and nonsensical story of survival and revenge; to its "far-from-likable" characters - Fantastic Planet certainly could've been a helluva lot better than it inevitably was.Even though the decidedly diminutive humans (aka.
The animation, for the time, I understand had to be restrained because of lack of resources, but even so the story seems like some kind of hackneyed parable on sexual repression.I'm just curious what went through the director's mind to produce this film in the first place, and why it's given such high praise.
Fantastic Planet is famed French animator René Laloux's most famous film.
Fantastic Planet is a work of pure sci-fi creativity and one of the most distinctive animation films ever..
The 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 French writer Stefan Wul.I love that Corman got involved, because he really was a champion of film.
This is a beautifully animated film with a great ending that will leave you wanting to watch it again.
"Fantastic Planet" is one of the stranger sci-fi films I have ever seen.
I'm utterly surprised at this movie's high rating because I could hardly make head nor tail of it and felt like I was watching an animated sci-fi version of The Emperor's New Clothes .
In the case of the latter, and specifically "Fantastic Planet", it's not a lot.Done with Monty Python-esque animation, the movie attempts to tell some sort of story.
This is a surrealist French animation from the 70s, and that's pretty much the sum-up of its description: Surreal, 70s, and French."Fantastic Planet" is a science fiction film about a world inhabited by Traags (large blue alien species) and Oms (human creatures that are regarded as pests and pets by the colossal Traags), along with other interesting and bizarre creatures like something out of Dr. Seuss.
The tiny human-like Oms are treated as pets and totally at the mercy of intellectual blue giants the Draags.
This movie is original and visually unique, creating a fascinating world like nothing that you have seen before.
This is an animated film made 45 years ago (1973) by the French, has the English title of "Fantastic Planet." Early on, it reminded me of the "Planet of the Apes" story in which "human" were the captives and someone else (aliens, here, called "Draags") were the "masters." He, we are the "humanoids," the visitors, so to speak on a foreign planet.In this story, the aliens are huge and appear not to be hostile.
Having heard about this movie for a long time, I didn't really know what to think about this film.
As for the movie itself?As the name implies, the story's setting is on the fantastic planet (sorry) Ygam, with the Renaissance-style-human depicted Oms and the enormous Draags sharing it.
It was a double feature with An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.(Also a beautiful film.) I have re-watched it many times since and I am always struck with how simple, yet complex both the artwork and the story are.On the planet Ygam huge blue Draags keep humans called Oms as pets.
I was very surprised by how much this film takes you into this surreal and stunningly visual world, complete with some assisting music and impressive sound effects creation, it is a fantastic French/Czech animated science-fiction fantasy.