René Laloux’s animated science fiction is worth exploring for its strange creatures and the distinctive drawings of his collaborators. We recommend Fantastic Planet warmly, with the reservation that its central character matters less than the world around him.
Fi1m perspective
The creatures in Fantastic Planet (1973) are more absorbing than its central character, and René Laloux gives us time to look at them. We were unsettled by their strangeness; simply surveying the landscape becomes an anxious activity. At 72 minutes, the film can linger without wearing out our interest. For all its shortcomings, this is animated science fiction we recommend warmly.
Laloux’s career takes shape through his choice of artists. The short The Snails (1965), made with Roland Topor, helped lead to his first feature, Fantastic Planet, produced with the Jiří Trnka studio in Prague. Later came Time Masters (1982), with Moebius, and his final feature, Gandahar (1987), with Caza. The change runs from Topor’s cross-hatching to Moebius’s clean geometrical lines and Caza’s mythological designs, while Laloux keeps his collaborators’ drawing styles recognisable in animation.
The cut-out technique in Fantastic Planet suits that approach: the pleasure lies in examining a drawing as much as watching it move. Laloux does not need fluid movement to hold our attention, though the limited and uneven movement in the later features is a reservation worth keeping. Alain Goraguer’s music is another reason to stay with Fantastic Planet when the characters cannot provide one. We would not trade those creatures for smoother animation, but their fascination cannot do every job a screenplay needs doing.
The screenplay Laloux wrote with Topor, from a novel by Stefan Wul, makes its concern with coexistence clear enough. Jean Valmont’s adult Terr supplies a narration that helps us follow events without bringing us especially close to him. The warning would matter more if Terr held our attention as firmly as the next strange creature; Laloux’s care for the inhabitants of this world is not equally distributed. Start with Fantastic Planet, and do not expect Terr to be the part you remember.
Biography
René Laloux was a French animator, screenwriter and film director. Born in Paris on 13 July 1929, he studied painting at art school and worked in advertising before taking a position at a psychiatric institution in Cour-Cheverny, where he began experimenting with animation alongside patients.
His early shorts included collaborations with Roland Topor, such as The Snails (1965). Laloux's best-known work is the feature Fantastic Planet (1973), for which he served as director and co-screenwriter; the film won a special jury prize at Cannes. He later directed Time Masters (1982) with Jean Giraud (Mœbius) and Gandahar (1987), and died in Angoulême on 14 March 2004.
