Fantastic Planet
Encyclopedia
Fantastic Planet is a 1973 animated
science fiction
film
directed by René Laloux
, production designed
by Roland Topor
, written by both of them and animated at Jiří Trnka Studio. 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
. 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). The film had a total of 809,945 admissions in France.
on the French-language word hommes, meaning men
), are creatures on the Draags' home planet, where they are seen as pests and sometimes kept as pets (with collars). The Draags are an alien race which is humanoid in shape but a hundred times larger than humans, with blue skin, fan-like earlobes and huge, protruding red eyes. The Draags also live much longer than human beings – one Draag week equals a human year. Some Oms are domesticated as pets, but others run wild, and are periodically exterminated. The Draags' treatment of the Oms is ironically contrasted with their high level of technological and spiritual development.
The story opens with a woman running, occasionally looking behind her as if pursued. An enormous hand descends and blocks her way. She runs back the way she came and finds her way blocked by another hand. It becomes apparent that she is being toyed with by entities that do not appreciate her fragility, and as she dies, the infant she has been carrying and attempting to protect begins to cry.
The view changes to reveal the Draag children who have accidentally killed the woman; they leave quickly when an adult Draag and child approach. The child voices concern for the orphaned infant, and the two take the child to their home. Tiva (the Draag child) names the infant Terr (word play on the French word Terre, meaning Earth). Her father, whom the adult Terr voice-over explains is master Sinh, the Draag great Aedile, attaches a collar capable of physically dragging Terr back from mischief, and over the next several scenes, their relationships develop.
Terr witnesses the parents seemingly ingesting food by inhaling it from a device. After changing Terr's costume as one would a doll's, Tiva uses makeup to give herself a more Om-like appearance. When Terr impishly trades dark pigment for light, Tiva blows some of the powder on him. Tiva uses a tiny indoor weather-maker to cause a small storm cloud to form over Terr and chase him around the dwelling. Tiva takes Terr for a walk, and then teaches him how, under certain circumstances, crystals will form on stationary objects, including standing bipeds. She also teaches him that whistling will shatter the crystals. Terr happens upon master Sinh as he and several compatriots are melding in a ritual, and it is revealed that many Draag children have Oms like Terr when they convene to watch their respective Oms interact.
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 their knowledge.
Meanwhile, at the seat of government, Draag Councilors discuss whether the regular extermination of the wild Oms is sufficient to keep their numbers at an acceptable level. It is revealed that Oms were first found on a planet that retained some evidence of structured life, but the images seem to reveal that Earth was in a post-apocalyptic state at the time.
Terr decides to escape, and to take the headset with him. He does not get very far before Tiva realizes he is missing, and her mother tells her to use her bracelet to bring him back. Terr finds himself suddenly being dragged backward by the collar. Only the headset becoming entangled in plants allows a wild female Om to come to his rescue before he is choked by the collar or dragged all the way back.
When Terr explains that the headset contains the knowledge of the Draags but he doesn't know where to go with it, his unnamed rescuer takes him to her tribe, who live in a tree in a walled park. When it is demonstrated that Terr can read Draag script, the leader (known only as "Mighty One") is willing to accept Terr into the tribe, but the Wizard is not, and demands a trial by combat – to the death. Terr and the Wizard's champion have child-sized animals bound to their torsos in such a way as to prevent the combatants from using anything but the beaks of said animals to attack. Terr is injured, but wins the trial.
Over the next several scenes, it is shown how the Oms have adapted to life on the Draags' planet. Snail-like animals weave clothes onto the Oms, predators that would eat Oms are in turn hunted and efficiently stripped of useful materials, and the gene pool is kept well-mixed. Oms even make the occasional foray into Draag areas in search of resources. Returning from one such expedition, the group of adventurers is accosted by bandits who drop clawlike harpoons into the cargo and simply lift it up into their own tree. Mighty One tells Terr that they live on the other side of the park, and cautions him that they are evil.
When the now-literate Oms read the new sign on one of the walls, they realize the park is about to be "de-Omised." Terr decides that he must take this information to the tribe of bandits, and is quickly captured and taken before their leader, a wizened old woman.
The woman is skeptical of his claims and orders Terr's imprisonment. When the de-Omising begins, however, the old woman returns and frees him. The de-Omising 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 through a crack in the park wall.
Two passing Draags witness the exodus, and one begins crushing the Oms underfoot. The Oms retaliate and manage to kill their attacker while the other escapes. Afterward, Mighty one is revealed to be killed and the old woman leads the survivors to a place where she believes they will be safe. The death of a Draag puts the Council in an uproar. De-Omising is stepped up to a much higher priority, new technologies are developed, and extermination frequency is scheduled to greatly increase.
The old woman has led the two now-united tribes to an old rocket depot. Applying their newfound knowledge, the Oms, under Terr's direction, very quickly adapt the abandoned technologies to their own purposes and begin to flourish, thanks to the rebirth of mechanized industry. On a visit to the old woman, Terr's wife hears her express both optimism and regret that she will not live to see the Oms finally find peace.
Fatalities resulting from Draag attempts to de-Om the rocket depot are minimized by the creation and organized use of shelters, but the Draags' updated de-Omising technologies become ever more aggressive, and when an automated scout detects the persistent Om settlement, it summons an array of lethal devices.
As the attacks become more diverse and effective, the Oms launch their manned rockets toward the Fantastic Planet, where they discover headless humanoid statues. As Draag meditation bubbles descend to alight atop the statues, the statues begin to dance. It is revealed via Terr's voiceover that this is the secret of the Fantastic Planet. Draag meditation animates the statues and allows the Draag to reproduce.
When the feet of the dancing statues threaten the rockets, the Oms use energy weapons to shatter the statues, effectively killing thousands of meditative Draag. Pandemonium reigns in the Council chamber, for it seems the two races will destroy one another if they cannot find a way to live together.
Apparently they do just that, for in the very next scene, an Om steps down off an outstretched Draag hand, removes his silly hat and assumes a posture of confidence and self-assertion. The headset voice dispassionately recounts the Draag's construction of a new satellite where Oms can live, "which they call Terr, after their ancestral planet."
imagery, the work of French writer
and artist
Roland Topor
. The landscape of the Draag 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 Draag 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 Draags 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 written long before this).
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
science fiction
Science fiction film
Science fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...
film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
directed by René Laloux
René Laloux
René Laloux was a French animator and film director.-Biography:He was born in Paris in 1929 and went to art school to study painting. After some time working in advertising, he got a job in a psychiatric institution where he began experimenting in animation with the interns...
, production designed
Production designer
In film and television, a production designer is the person responsible for the overall look of a filmed event such as films, TV programs, music videos or adverts. Production designers have one of the key creative roles in the creation of motion pictures and television. Working directly with the...
by Roland Topor
Roland Topor
Roland Topor , was a French illustrator, painter, writer and filmmaker, known for the surreal nature of his work...
, written by both of them and animated at Jiří Trnka Studio. The film was an international production between France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
and was distributed in the United States by Roger Corman
Roger Corman
Roger William Corman is an American film producer, director and actor. He has mostly worked on low-budget B movies. Some of Corman's work has an established critical reputation, such as his cycle of films adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and in 2009 he won an Honorary Academy Award for...
. It won the special jury prize
Grand Prix (Cannes Film Festival)
The Grand Prix is an award of the Cannes Film Festival bestowed by the jury of the festival on one of the competing feature films. It is the second-most prestigious prize of the festival after the Palme d'Or...
at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival
1973 Cannes Film Festival
The 26th Cannes Film Festival was held on May 10–25, 1973. At this festival two new non-competitive sections were added: 'Étude et documents' and 'Perspectives du Cinéma Français' ....
. The story is based on the novel Oms en série
Oms en Série
Oms en série is a French science fiction novel written by Stefan Wul, first published in 1957. It was later adapted into the animated feature film La Planète sauvage...
, by the French writer Stefan Wul
Stefan Wul
Stefan Wul was the nom de plume of French science fiction writer Pierre Pairault . He was a dental surgeon, but science fiction was his real passion. Most of his books reflect that, showing a deep knowledge of scientific data...
. A working title for the film while it was in development was Sur la planète Ygam (On the Planet Ygam). The film had a total of 809,945 admissions in France.
Synopsis
The film depicts a future in which human beings, known as "Oms" (a word playWord play
Word play or wordplay is a literary technique in which the words that are used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement...
on the French-language word hommes, meaning men
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
), are creatures on the Draags' home planet, where they are seen as pests and sometimes kept as pets (with collars). The Draags are an alien race which is humanoid in shape but a hundred times larger than humans, with blue skin, fan-like earlobes and huge, protruding red eyes. The Draags also live much longer than human beings – one Draag week equals a human year. Some Oms are domesticated as pets, but others run wild, and are periodically exterminated. The Draags' treatment of the Oms is ironically contrasted with their high level of technological and spiritual development.
The story opens with a woman running, occasionally looking behind her as if pursued. An enormous hand descends and blocks her way. She runs back the way she came and finds her way blocked by another hand. It becomes apparent that she is being toyed with by entities that do not appreciate her fragility, and as she dies, the infant she has been carrying and attempting to protect begins to cry.
The view changes to reveal the Draag children who have accidentally killed the woman; they leave quickly when an adult Draag and child approach. The child voices concern for the orphaned infant, and the two take the child to their home. Tiva (the Draag child) names the infant Terr (word play on the French word Terre, meaning Earth). Her father, whom the adult Terr voice-over explains is master Sinh, the Draag great Aedile, attaches a collar capable of physically dragging Terr back from mischief, and over the next several scenes, their relationships develop.
Terr witnesses the parents seemingly ingesting food by inhaling it from a device. After changing Terr's costume as one would a doll's, Tiva uses makeup to give herself a more Om-like appearance. When Terr impishly trades dark pigment for light, Tiva blows some of the powder on him. Tiva uses a tiny indoor weather-maker to cause a small storm cloud to form over Terr and chase him around the dwelling. Tiva takes Terr for a walk, and then teaches him how, under certain circumstances, crystals will form on stationary objects, including standing bipeds. She also teaches him that whistling will shatter the crystals. Terr happens upon master Sinh as he and several compatriots are melding in a ritual, and it is revealed that many Draag children have Oms like Terr when they convene to watch their respective Oms interact.
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 their knowledge.
Meanwhile, at the seat of government, Draag Councilors discuss whether the regular extermination of the wild Oms is sufficient to keep their numbers at an acceptable level. It is revealed that Oms were first found on a planet that retained some evidence of structured life, but the images seem to reveal that Earth was in a post-apocalyptic state at the time.
Terr decides to escape, and to take the headset with him. He does not get very far before Tiva realizes he is missing, and her mother tells her to use her bracelet to bring him back. Terr finds himself suddenly being dragged backward by the collar. Only the headset becoming entangled in plants allows a wild female Om to come to his rescue before he is choked by the collar or dragged all the way back.
When Terr explains that the headset contains the knowledge of the Draags but he doesn't know where to go with it, his unnamed rescuer takes him to her tribe, who live in a tree in a walled park. When it is demonstrated that Terr can read Draag script, the leader (known only as "Mighty One") is willing to accept Terr into the tribe, but the Wizard is not, and demands a trial by combat – to the death. Terr and the Wizard's champion have child-sized animals bound to their torsos in such a way as to prevent the combatants from using anything but the beaks of said animals to attack. Terr is injured, but wins the trial.
Over the next several scenes, it is shown how the Oms have adapted to life on the Draags' planet. Snail-like animals weave clothes onto the Oms, predators that would eat Oms are in turn hunted and efficiently stripped of useful materials, and the gene pool is kept well-mixed. Oms even make the occasional foray into Draag areas in search of resources. Returning from one such expedition, the group of adventurers is accosted by bandits who drop clawlike harpoons into the cargo and simply lift it up into their own tree. Mighty One tells Terr that they live on the other side of the park, and cautions him that they are evil.
When the now-literate Oms read the new sign on one of the walls, they realize the park is about to be "de-Omised." Terr decides that he must take this information to the tribe of bandits, and is quickly captured and taken before their leader, a wizened old woman.
The woman is skeptical of his claims and orders Terr's imprisonment. When the de-Omising begins, however, the old woman returns and frees him. The de-Omising 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 through a crack in the park wall.
Two passing Draags witness the exodus, and one begins crushing the Oms underfoot. The Oms retaliate and manage to kill their attacker while the other escapes. Afterward, Mighty one is revealed to be killed and the old woman leads the survivors to a place where she believes they will be safe. The death of a Draag puts the Council in an uproar. De-Omising is stepped up to a much higher priority, new technologies are developed, and extermination frequency is scheduled to greatly increase.
The old woman has led the two now-united tribes to an old rocket depot. Applying their newfound knowledge, the Oms, under Terr's direction, very quickly adapt the abandoned technologies to their own purposes and begin to flourish, thanks to the rebirth of mechanized industry. On a visit to the old woman, Terr's wife hears her express both optimism and regret that she will not live to see the Oms finally find peace.
Fatalities resulting from Draag attempts to de-Om the rocket depot are minimized by the creation and organized use of shelters, but the Draags' updated de-Omising technologies become ever more aggressive, and when an automated scout detects the persistent Om settlement, it summons an array of lethal devices.
As the attacks become more diverse and effective, the Oms launch their manned rockets toward the Fantastic Planet, where they discover headless humanoid statues. As Draag meditation bubbles descend to alight atop the statues, the statues begin to dance. It is revealed via Terr's voiceover that this is the secret of the Fantastic Planet. Draag meditation animates the statues and allows the Draag to reproduce.
When the feet of the dancing statues threaten the rockets, the Oms use energy weapons to shatter the statues, effectively killing thousands of meditative Draag. Pandemonium reigns in the Council chamber, for it seems the two races will destroy one another if they cannot find a way to live together.
Apparently they do just that, for in the very next scene, an Om steps down off an outstretched Draag hand, removes his silly hat and assumes a posture of confidence and self-assertion. The headset voice dispassionately recounts the Draag's construction of a new satellite where Oms can live, "which they call Terr, after their ancestral planet."
Themes
The film is chiefly noted for its surrealSurrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
imagery, the work of French writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
and artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
Roland Topor
Roland Topor
Roland Topor , was a French illustrator, painter, writer and filmmaker, known for the surreal nature of his work...
. The landscape of the Draag 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 Draag practice of meditation
Meditation
Meditation is any form of a family of practices in which practitioners train their minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit....
, 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 Draags 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
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
(the source novel was written long before this).
Track listing
- Deshominisation (II)
- Deshominisation (I)
- Generique
- Le Bracelet
- Ten et Tiwa
- Maquillage de Tiwa
- Course de Ten
- Ten et Medor
- Ten et Tiwa Dormet
- Ten est Assome
- Abite
- Conseil des Draags
- Les Hommes - La Grande Co-existence
- La Femme
- Mira et Ten
- Morte de Draag
- L'Oiseau
- La Cite des Hommes Libres
- Attaque des Robots
- La Longue Marche - Valse Des Statues
- Les Fusees
- Generique
- Strip Tease
- Meditation des Enfants
- La Vielle Meurt
Video releases
- At least two versions of the film were available on VHS, the only differences being two very brief scenes. The shortened film left out Tiva's first attempt at naming the new baby Om and her father's reply. Another very brief omission (an establishing shot) had no dialogue.
- Burnt-in English subtitlesSubtitle (captioning)Subtitles are textual versions of the dialog in films and television programs, usually displayed at the bottom of the screen. They can either be a form of written translation of a dialog in a foreign language, or a written rendering of the dialog in the same language, with or without added...
on Anchor BayAnchor Bay EntertainmentAnchor Bay Entertainment is a U.S. based home entertainment and production company and is a division of Starz Media, which is a unit of Starz, LLC. It was previously owned by IDT Entertainment until 2006 when IDT was purchased by Starz Media. Anchor Bay markets and sells feature films, series,...
's USA DVD release spell the name of the blue-skinned race as "Draag"; the original novelOms en SérieOms en série is a French science fiction novel written by Stefan Wul, first published in 1957. It was later adapted into the animated feature film La Planète sauvage...
the film is based on spells it as "Traag".
- In 2006, Eureka Entertainment released the film on DVD in the UK as #34 in their Masters of CinemaMasters of CinemaThe Masters of Cinema organization began as a website dedicated to the most well-regarded film directors in the world. Founded by a diverse international group of like-minded film enthusiasts: Jan Bielawski, a mathematician; Doug Cummings, a graphic artist and freelance critic; Trond Trondsen, a Ph.D...
range. Unlike the Anchor Bay release, this uses an anamorphic widescreen transfer and newly translated subtitles which retain the "Draag" spelling. This version was released in Region 1 on October 23, 2007.
- On October 23, 2007 Facets Video and Accent Cinema released a newly restored version of the film on DVD, including many bonus features never available before. It is different from the version released by Eureka.
- In August of 2010, Eureka released a restored high-definition transfer of the film on Blu-Ray, with special features including a collection of Laloux's short films, and a 27-minute documentary called Laloux sauvage. Eureka, a London-based company, has only produced the edition as a region B release.