The Greatest Science Fiction Film You’ve Never Heard Of
You know that movie about the tall blue aliens that go to war with humans on a wild planet full of crazy animals and weird plants? No, not that one. I’m talking about the 1973 French experimental adult animated science fiction film Fantastic Planet, directed by René Laloux. A psychedelic adaptation of French author Stefan Wul’s 1957 novel Oms en serié, the film follows a small tribe of human beings living on a massive, dangerous planet ruled by an oppressive race of giant blue aliens. Debuting at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, the film received the Grand Prix special jury prize, and in 2016 was ranked the 36th greatest animated movie of all time by Rolling Stone. Strangely enough, though, no one seems to have ever heard of it.
With the influx of movie iceberg videos on YouTube, to indie films gaining astronomical attraction on social media, there’s not really any discussion of the brilliantly bizarre avant-garde films the 70s had to offer. When you type in Fantastic Planet into YouTube, only a handful of videos pop up, with the majority being trippy edits of the film's multiple psychedelic sequences. There’s barely any mention of the film on movie forums or critique blogs. Even Googling the film brings up two late 90’s studio albums of the same name, but with no affiliation to the movie.
What’s This About, Anyway?
Taking place in a distant galaxy during an unspecified time period, gigantic blue aliens have brought humans from Earth to the planet Ygam, a technicolor world where monstrous creatures roam. The aliens, known as the Draags, have built a technologically advanced society where they breed humans like cattle to act as pets and treat them like spectacles. The humans, called Oms, are occasionally slaughtered by the Draags to control their population. While the Oms reproduce quicker than the Draags, they have much shorter life spans and are microscopic in comparison to the gargantuan aliens which control them.
The film begins when an Om mother is killed by three Draag children. Her son is found by Master Sinh, a Draag leader, and his daughter, Tiwa, who persuades him to let her keep the child as a pet. Naming him Terr, because he’s a “little terror”, Tiwa dresses him in an electric collar that prevents him from ever leaving her side. Like all Draag children, Tiwa attends daily educational sessions in which she wears a headset that transmits knowledge into her mind. She allows Terr to sit in the palm of her hand as she learns, but a defect in his color allows Terr to actually receive the knowledge sent from Tiwa’s headset. As time goes on, Tiwa grows older and begins performing Draag meditation, a mysterious ritual that is the cornerstone of all Draag technology and advancements. She forgets about Terr, who is now a young man, allowing him to steal her headset and escape into the wilderness.
Outside, he runs into a wild female Om, who cuts off his collar and introduces him to the rest of her tribe. The wild Oms live in an abandoned Draag park littered with broken-down equipment and strange creatures. Terr shows the rest of the Oms how to utilize the headset, allowing them all to acquire knowledge about the planet Ygam, as well as read Draag writing. This lets them read a sign that states the park will be purged of Oms the following day. Many Oms are slaughtered by Draag fumigation machines, while some survive and join a neighboring tribe in a bush. When two Draags pass by the park and still see it populated with Oms, they begin stomping on them, causing the Oms to retaliate and kill one of the aliens.
The remaining Oms, led by Terr, flee the park and head to an abandoned rocket depot where they thrive for years, replicating Draag technology to their size. They build two rockets in hopes to leave Ygam for its moon, the Fantastic Planet, but their plans are halted when a Draag purge machine finds the sanctuary and begins slaughtering the Oms. A few remain and escape on a rocket to the Fantastic Planet, where they find the landscape littered with massive statues resembling the headless bodies of men and women. Here, the Oms discover the Draags travel to these statues to meet other beings from different galaxies. When the Oms manage to destroy a few of the statues, Draag meditation is completely cut off, threatening their entire existence. In emergency, the Draags negotiate terms of peace with the Oms, agreeing to call off further extermination if they leave them the Fantastic Planet for meditation. The Oms agree, with the exception that another artificial planet be created for the Oms to live peacefully. Both the Oms and the Draags successfully create a truce, with the film ending as the Oms fly to their new planet, named Terr.
So yeah, it’s pretty crazy. But just reading about the plot doesn’t give you a sliver of the enchanting experience when actually watching the film. What undoubtedly gives this film its allurance is its subdued, pastel color palette. Drawn entirely out of colored pencil, each frame is sketched on cut-out and hinged paper, giving the character’s stiff, rigid movements for each scene. Pencil scratches and scribbles decorate each frame like a classic work of art in motion. This adds to the otherworldliness of the domineering Draags, compared to the feebleness of the tiny Oms. Its soundtrack, created by composer Alain Goraguer, is comprised of psychedelic soundscapes, mixed with low moans and animal sounds to immerse the watcher into this hauntingly beautiful world. Blending psychedelia, jazz, and funk, the soundtrack charges the film with a marijuana-induced energy that, in itself, feels like a trip to outer space.
Beyond the Daliesque imagery and hypnotic soundtrack lies a blatant allegorical meaning of power imbalance on our own planet. While the director has never explicitly stated what the film stands for, it doesn’t take a lot of thought to imagine oneself as the tiny Oms running from the oppressive Draags. With this, the film cements itself as a powerful depiction of injustice in the most absurdly fantastical way.
So if you’re gonna watch a movie about aliens, why not make it a trip?
