Fantastic Planet

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Fantastic Planet (La Planète sauvage)

Directed by	René Laloux
Produced by	Simon Damiani Andre Valio-Cavaglione
Written by	Steve Hayes Roland Topor Stefan Wul
Music by	Alain Goraguer
Cinematography	Boris Baromykin Lubomir Rejthar
Editing by	Dick Elliott Rich Harrison
Release date(s)	1973
Running time	72 min.
Country	Czechoslovakia France
Language	French
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See Fantastic Planet (album) for the music album by Failure.

Fantastic Planet is the English title of La Planète sauvage (literally "The Savage Planet") an animated 1973 science fiction film directed by René Laloux. The film was an international production between France and Czechoslovakia and has been distributed in the United States by Roger Corman. It won the special jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1973. The story is based on a novel, Oms en Série, by the French writer Stefan Wul.

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The film depicts a future in which human beings, known as "Oms" (a play on the French word "homme" or "man"), have been brought by the giant Traags to the Traags' home planet, where they are kept as pets (with collars). The Traags are an alien race which is humanoid in shape but ten times larger than humans, with blue skin, fanlike earlobes and huge, protruding eyes. The Traags also live much longer than human beings - one Traag week equals a human year. Some Oms are domesticated as pets, but others run wild in parks, and are periodically exterminated. The Traags' treatment of the Oms is ironically contrasted with their high level of technological and spiritual development. The story concerns Terr(word play of terre,earth in french), a domestic Om who runs away and joins a tribe of wild Oms, which are regarded as vermin by the Traags. Because Terr has imbibed the Traags' knowledge (his child owner liked to have his company during her learning sessions), he is able to help his species become powerful enough to gain recognition from the Traags as intelligent beings, and to negotiate a more equitable way of life.

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 drops them on 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 Fantastic Planet itself, a natural satellite of the Traag planet where the meditating Traags commune with alien species, is a barren landscape covered in headless statues; when the Traags meditate, bubbles containing their faces are shown leaving the Traag planet and attaching themselves to the statues' necks, whereupon the statues begin to dance.

[edit] Trivia

English subtitles on the current DVD release of this movie spell the name of the race as Traag; the original novel that the film is based on spells it as Draag.

Featured in the 2000 film The Cell: it is on Catherine Deane's (portrayed by Jennifer Lopez) television before she falls asleep.