Fantastic Planet (1973)
Directed by René Laloux
On the planet Ygam, the Draags, extremely technologically and spiritually advanced blue humanoids, consider the tiny Oms, human beings descendants of Terra's inhabitants, as ignorant animals. Those who live in slavery are treated as simple pets and used to entertain Draag children; those who live hidden in the hostile wilderness of the planet are periodically hunted and ruthlessly slaughtered as if they were vermin.
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What critics compared Fantastic Planet to
The most Gilliamesque (a director I was frequently reminded of) moment, unfortunately brief, is with the giants – who are blankly staring alien-like beings reminiscent of Fantastic Planet (1973).
Gawain’s brush with a plucky miscreant (played by Barry Keoghan) on a corpse-strewn battlefield is equal parts “The Mists of Avalon” and “Come and See,” while a jaw-dropping encounter with a clan of bald-headed giants borrows from René Laloux’s “Fantastic Planet” as the film’s (relatively) grounded first half gives way to the unmoored fantasy of its second.
Giants that evoke the design of the creatures in “Fantastic Planet” aren’t so much intimidating as they are lonesome and magic is as obvious as a trick of the light.
From The Matrix to Minority Report to eXistenZ to Scanners to Fantastic Planet and hell, even stuff like The Cell , it’s a hall of mirrors that thinks it’s way more transgressive than it is.
Based on a novel by Czech fantasist Stefan Wul , Planetopens on an unselfconsciously ominous note: a ragged woman clutching a baby runs through a thorny wilderness, sharp Yellow Submarineish squiggles and spikes raining onto her path.