Fantastic Planet

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Fantastic Planet




French film poster.


Directed by

René Laloux


Produced by

Simon Damiani

Andre Valio-Cavaglione


Written by

Screenplay:

René Laloux

Roland Topor

Novel:

Stefan Wul


Music by

Alain Goraguer


Cinematography

Boris Baromykin

Lubomir Rejthar


Editing by

Dick Elliott

Rich Harrison


Distributed by

Argos Films


Release date(s)

6 December 1973


Running time

72 minutes


Country

France
Czechoslovakia


Language

French



Fantastic Planet (French: La Planète sauvage, lit. The Wild Planet) is a 1973 cutout stop motion science fiction allegorical film directed by René Laloux, production designed by Roland Topor, written by both of them and animated at Jiří Trnka Studio.[1] The film was an international production between France and Czechoslovakia and was distributed in the United States by Roger Corman. It won the special jury prize at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival.[2] The story is based on the novel Oms en série, by the French writer Stefan Wul. A working title for the film while it was in development was Sur la planète Ygam (On the Planet Ygam).[3] The film had a total of 809,945 admissions in France.[4]



Contents

[hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Themes
4 Soundtrack
4.1 Track listing
5 Video releases
6 Televised airings
7 References in other works
8 References
9 External links

Plot [edit]






This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. (February 2013)



The film depicts a future in which human beings, known as "Oms" (a homonym of the French-language word hommes, meaning men), are creatures on the Traags' home planet. The Traags are an alien species which is humanoid in shape but a hundred times larger than humans and they live much longer than human beings. Although some Oms are domesticated as pets, they are seen as pests and are periodically exterminated.


A group of Traag children accidentally kill an Om woman during play. Unfortunately her death leaves an orphaned infant, who is taken in by an adult Traag as a pet for his child, Tiva. Tiva’s father just happens to be master Sinh, the Traag great Aedile and after some time, when the child and pet are playing, they surprise him and several of his compatriots during a ritual melding session. It is revealed that many Traag children have Oms like Tiva's.


The bond created between the Traag child, Tiva, and the Om, named Terr (word play on the French word Terre, meaning Earth) deepens as time passes by. 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 the Traag knowledge. Terr begins to realize who and what he is, and escapes, taking the headset with him.


He eventually finds other Oms and after some tribulation, is accepted into a tribe. Over the next several scenes, it is shown how the Oms have adapted to life on the Traags' planet. One day, the now-literate Oms reads a new sign on one of the walls, and learns the park is about to be "de-Omized." The de-Omizing is accomplished using disks that release a poison gas. A great many Oms perish from this gas, but a sizable number still manage to escape.


The Oms retaliate and manage to kill one of their Traag attackers. The death of the Traag puts the Council in an uproar. De-Omizing is stepped up to a much higher priority, new technologies are developed, and extermination frequency greatly increases.


Fatalities resulting from Traag attempts to de-Omize are minimized by the creation and organized use of shelters, but the Traags' updated technologies become ever more aggressive, and when an automated scout detects the persistent Om settlement, it summons an array of lethal devices. The Oms launch manned rockets toward the Fantastic Planet, where they discover headless humanoid statues. As Traag meditation bubbles descend to alight atop the statues, the statues begin to dance. This is the secret that animates the statues and allows the Traags to reproduce. When the feet of the dancing statues threaten the rockets, the Oms use disintegration weapons to shatter the statues, which in turn makes thousands of meditative Traag to go insane. Pandemonium reigns in the Council chamber, for it seems the two species will destroy one another if they cannot find a way to live together. While the Traag council continues to think of revenge, it is proposed that the two species finally create peace between each other.


The last scene proves that peace has been made as an Om steps down off an outstretched Traag hand, removes his silly hat and assumes a posture of confidence and self-assertion.
Cast [edit]
Jennifer Drake as Tiva (voice)
Eric Baugin as Terr (voice)
Jean Topart as Master Sinh (voice)
Jean Valmont as adult Terr and the commentator (voice)
Themes [edit]






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The film is chiefly noted for its surreal imagery, the work of French writer and artist Roland Topor. The landscape of the Traag planet is full of strange creatures, including a cackling predator which traps small fluttering animals in its cage-like nose, shakes them to death and hurls them to the ground. The Traag practice of meditation, whereby they commune psychically with each other and with different species, is shown in transformations of their shape and colour.


The interaction of science and superstition is most apparent in the Wizard, who resists the knowledge that Terr brings, fearing it will erode the power he maintains. Knowledge trumps ignorance, but in this case only after surviving an attempted assassination.


Terr's drive to share knowledge overpowers the fear of an unknown people. Only his courage to save others not of his adopted tribe allows that tribe to overcome the loss of their leader.


The Traags and Oms finally learn to live in peace and mutual benefit; presumably any groups can if they and their leaders really want to. This may have been a theme favoured by the filmmakers as it was made and released during the Cold War (the source novel was first published in 1957).