FANTASTIC PLANET / THE TIME MASTERS / GANDAHAR

ABOUT THE FILMS:

FANTASTIC PLANET, 1973, Dir. René Laloux, 72 Mins, Janus Films, France/Czechoslovakia

In French with English subtitles.

Nothing else has ever looked or felt like director René Laloux’s animated marvel FANTASTIC PLANET, a politically minded and visually inventive work of science fiction. The film is set on a distant planet called Ygam, where enslaved humans (Oms) are the playthings of giant blue native inhabitants (Draags). After Terr, kept as a pet since infancy, escapes from his gigantic child captor, he is swept up by a band of radical fellow Oms who are resisting the Draags’ oppression and violence. With its eerie, coolly surreal cutout animation by Roland Topor, brilliant psychedelic jazz score by Alain Goraguer and wondrous creatures and landscapes, this Cannes-awarded 1973 counterculture classic is a perennially compelling statement against conformity and violence.

FORMAT: DCP

THE TIME MASTERS, 1982, Dir. René Laloux, 79 Mins, Janus Films, France/Switzerland/UK/West Germany/Hungary

In French with English subtitles.

Directed by visionary science-fiction animator René Laloux (FANTASTIC PLANET) and designed by the legendary Jean Giraud (a.k.a. Mœbius), THE TIME MASTERS is a visually fantastic foray into existentialist space adventure. After his parents are killed on the dangerous planet Perdide, young Piel (voiced by Frédéric Legros) survives by maintaining radio contact with Jaffar (Jean Valmont), a pilot transporting the exiled Prince Matton (Yves-Marie Maurin) and Princess Belle (Monique Thierry) from their former kingdom. Jaffar seeks the help of Silbad (Michel Elias), a cheerful old-timer who knows how to circumvent Perdide’s hazards, including brain-devouring insects and watery graves. Along the way, Jaffar and company encounter a pair of impish homunculi stowaways, identity-less angels controlled by an amorphous hive mind, and the Masters of Time, mysterious beings who can bend reality and perhaps reveal to the heroes their secret origins and destinies.

FORMAT: DCP

GANDAHAR, 1987, Dir. René Laloux, 93 Mins, Janus Films, France

In French with English subtitles.

An entire civilization must confront its destiny in alternative-animation pioneer René Laloux’s final feature, a cult classic of mind-bending science fiction. In a distant world, a merciless army of automata attacks Gandahar, turning its peace-loving people to stone. Hoping to discover the source of these Men of Metal, a council of matriarchs enlists the brave yet inexperienced warrior Sylvain (Pierre-Marie Escourro), who, while journeying through his planet’s outer regions, teams up with the Deformed, a race cast out from Gandahar after failed science experiments rendered them mutants. Soon, Sylvain learns that a gargantuan brain called Metamorphis (Georges Wilson) is responsible for his utopian society’s strife and—together with the beautiful Airelle (Catherine Chevallier)—travels through time to defeat him, in the process risking their lives and Gandahar’s very existence. Featuring stunningly surreal creatures and wondrously bizarre environments designed by renowned comic-book artist Caza, GANDAHAR is a visceral, visionary head-trip in which animation opens a gateway to the furthest reaches of the imagination.

FORMAT: DCP