Fantastic Planet (Masters of Cinema) DVD+Blu-ray, 1973

aka La Planéte sauvage

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MovieMail's Review

The missing link between the groundbreaking Czech animation of Karel Zeman and Jan Svankmajer and the fantasies of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, Fantastic Planet (1973) was a French-produced, Czech-made collaboration between animation director René Laloux and the surrealist painter-writer Roland Topor. It's set in a parallel universe in which the giant, technologically advanced Draags hold sway over the tiny, primitive Oms (it's a French film, so that’s ‘hommes’), until a Draag ‘pet’ called Terr accidentally imbibes the knowledge underpinning their civilisation and passes it onto his fellow Oms, who inevitably decide to use it to their advantage. There are any number of allegorical parallels, and memories of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia would have been fresh in the minds of most of the production team, but the film's main strengths lie in Topor's wildly imaginative conceptual designs: this is one of the few sci-fi films with a truly unique look. Masters of Cinema have given it a typically deluxe package, including a new anamorphic transfer, two other Laloux shorts and a 40-page booklet.

Michael Brooke on 11th August 2006
View all 112 of Michael Brooke's reviews

Film Information

Director - René Laloux

Produced - 1973

Main Language - French

Countries & Regions - European Film, French Film

DVD+Blu-ray Details

Certificate:	PG	Publisher:	Eureka / Masters of Cinema	Region:	2
Length:	72 mins	Aspect:	1.66:1	Cat No:	EKA70056
Format:	DVD+Blu-ray Colour

DVD+Blu-ray Extras

2 discs
New high-definition master with optional English subtitles
Laloux’s five short films - Les Dents du singe (1960), Les Temps morts (1964), Les Escargots (1965), Comment Wang-Fo fut sauvé (1987), and La Prisonnière (1988)
Laloux sauvage (2003) - 27-minute documentary about Laloux
The alternate USA dub track for La Planète sauvage
The complete soundtrack for La Planète sauvage
56-page colour booklet.

Film Description

Fantastic Planet - René Laloux's mesmerising psychedelic animated sci-fi feature won the Grand Prix at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival and is a landmark of European animation. Based on Stefan Wul's novel Oms en série (Oms by the dozen), Laloux's breathtaking vision was released in France as La Planète sauvage [The Savage Planet], in the USA as Fantastic Planet, and immediately drew comparisons to Swift's Gulliver's Travels and Planet of the Apes. Today, the film can be seen to prefigure much of the work of Hayao Miyazaki at Studio Ghibli due to its palpable political and social concerns, cultivated imagination and memorable animation techniques.

La Planète sauvage tells the story of 'Oms', human-like creatures, kept as domesticated pets by an alien race of blue giants called 'Draags'. The story takes place on the Draags' planet Ygam, where we follow our narrator, an Om called Terr, from infancy to adulthood. He manages to escape enslavement from a Draag learning device used to educate the savage Oms - and begins to organise an Om revolt. The imagination invested in the surreal creatures, music and sound design, and eerie landscapes, is immense and unforgettable.

Widely regarded as an allegorical statement on the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia, Fantastic Planet was five years in the making at Prague's Jiri Trnka Studios. The direction of René Laloux, the incredible art of Roland Topor, and Alain Goraguer's brilliant complementary score (much sampled by the hip-hop community) all combine to make La Planète sauvage a mind-searing experience.