Review: The Fantastic Planet

Set on the planet Ygam, which has two distinct races: Humanoids called Oms, and blue-skinned Draags (an intellectual and somewhat meditative race). The Draags are the superior race on the planet, with the Oms (who were nabbed from a planet called Terra) resigned to being slaves or pets for the younger Draags. We follow one particular Om child through the years, given the name Terr. Eventually Terr becomes accustomed to life as a pet, until his Draag owner grows up and loses interest in Terr. Terr eventually hooks up with a bunch of other Oms on the lam, so to speak. Meanwhile, it is decided that the Oms have become a problem for the Draags, and must be exterminated. But that may not be as simple as they think, as the Oms have become educated, and learn of this extermination plan, as they prepare to launch an uprising.

 

One of the weirdest animated films you’ll ever see, this 1973 French/Czech sci-fi flick from debut director Rene Laloux (a Frenchman) and co-writer Roland Topor (who wrote the novel that became Roman Polanski’s underrated “The Tenant”) is compellingly bizarre and a little bit disturbing, really. It’s certainly not an easy film to forget, and unlike anything you’ll ever see. It’s as if Terry Gilliam were to animate a bizarre dream he had after watching a double bill of Just Jaeckin’s “Gwendoline” (or even Roger Vadim’s “Barbarella”) and Francois Truffaut’s “Fahrenheit 451”, while on some bad brown acid. Or something. I dunno. Just see it yourself and make up your own mind about what the hell this is (Some argue that the themes of slave ownership relate to the Soviet occupation of the Czech Republic). All I can say is that I found it compellingly bizarre, and dated or not the animation still had its charms.

 

It’s not nearly as innocuous as its family friendly rating might suggest. I mean there’s some really unseemly shit going on here with aliens treating children (and teens) as pets/slaves, as well as quite a bit of nudity. And not just alien nudity, some of the humans (or humanoids, if you prefer) show their naughty bits, too. It’s all a bit inappropriate, really, but so weird that you’re not sure enough about it to get offended or anything. But nonetheless, this is a G-rated film (at least here in Australia, where I saw it on cable TV) with slavery, oppression, genocide, and full-frontal animated female nudity. Wow. There’s more tits in this than in most editions of Playboy (Or so I’ve heard).

 

I’ve got to give the filmmakers/animators kudos for creating a world and alien race unlike anything that has been seen before or since in cinema. That’s important to me, because I often find such things limited by the human imagination. Aliens, if they exist, shouldn’t look like anything our minds can even conjure, if you ask me. This film comes pretty close to creating that.

 

It’s a shame that the finale is so rushed, though. Did they only have a certain amount of time to get it in the can? You’d think they’d plan more carefully, so as not to have to put the final 10-15 minutes on warp speed, after a previously leisurely pace. But narrative isn’t the film’s strongest suit, and to an extent I’m OK with that. It still works for the most part, it just seemed awfully rushed at the end.

 

This film is the damndest thing I ever did see. It’s practically indescribable, deeper than the average animated film, and you’ll certainly never forget it once seen.

 

Rating: B-