Friday, February 3, 2017

Sci Fi Top 100, #51: "Fantastic Planet" (1973)

Movie Stats:
Released 1973 (France)
French & Czechoslovakian, in French (I watched with English subtitles)
Director - Rene Laloux
Stars - Eric Baugin, Jean Valmont

Plot Summary:
On a distant planet, the giant Traag people keep a humanoid race called the Om as pets. Young orphan Terr is taken in by a Traag family and eventually uses the knowledge he gleans from them to start a rebellion. Baugin voices young Terr; Valmont voices him as an adult/acts as narrator.

Warnings:
Violence; gore; full female & male nudity; heavily implied sexy times.

Bad Stuff:
It’s so boring! Never has an hour and eleven minutes of my life felt longer.

The big reveal about why the Traag spend so much time meditating made me roll my eyes. [SPOILER] They’re actually having sex during meditation. Which, come to think of it, makes that scene where the Traag children went off to meditate for the first time a little bit creepy. [SPOILER]

The soundtrack is painful.

Good Stuff:
It has a good message. It certainly should make you think twice about how we as humans treat animals.

I like the animation style. I’m not sure I’ve seen much like it before.

It’s very creative.

The Verdict:
I want to like this film because I know it’s innovative, it’s creative, and it has a strong viewpoint (although the execution of that point is a bit heavy-handed). But I didn’t like it. I was bored to tears. I seriously felt like I spent the whole afternoon watching it, while in reality it’s the shortest film on this list so far. Just not my cup of tea, I guess. If you want to watch something obscure and/or different, I wouldn’t discourage you from giving it a shot. But I also wouldn’t put it on my own sci fi recommendation list.

I give it 2 stars.

2 comments:

Patricia said...

Heavily implied sexy times in 1973 animation!!!! That's something different.

I sort of wanted you to learn Czeck so you could watch this movie without subtitles. :-)

balyien said...

In a recent Reddit thread where people were recommending obscure movies to watch, someone listed this one. Almost made me wish I had a Reddit account so I could put in my two cents. I just do not get the appeal of this film. Maybe it is better in its original language, who knows.