[3.8]
Very French, very ‘70s, very druggy, this is a classic animation that explores the lives of humans as playthings for aliens. Director René Laloux taps into the humanistic trends of the era to show us a world where our actions aren’t determined by deities but by the whims of an advanced species (well, advanced in science, but not in individual rights). Laloux depicts us as both the oppressed and oppressor, and stressing the importance of environment in behavior. The story opens with the rather brutal killing of a young woman who is running with a baby in her arms, trying to escape something. She runs up a hill, only to be flicked back to the bottom. This repeats, in a cruel but humorous way (reminiscent of one of those Monty Python cartoons), until she is finally lifted up and dropped to her death. Then the laughs stop. We see the child, alone and confused, and we are brought back to the reality of murder. This child, dubbed Om, is adopted as a pet by the ruling aliens, the Draags. He is dressed up, fed, forced to fight other humans in cockfight-like battles put on by the bored kiddie Draags. But Om is different; he is allowed to sit in on his master’s education sessions, and absorbs a great deal of the information. Armed with knowledge, the Om steals the teaching device and escapes into the wilderness, only to run into a band of armed human rebels. The wild humans are no match for the Oms, as they have divided themselves into separate, warring factions. Only when the Draags infiltrate the park that the Oms have hidden in, and set out on a campaign of extermination, do the Oms finally fight their enemy head on. In the end, the two species come to a peace agreement, with an unspoken “and they lived happily ever after.”
While the premise is intriguing, the music hypnotic and captivating, and the animation style almost classically surreal (many of the compositions are pure Dali), the story meanders in a sort-of “French Art House” way. The early ‘70s was certainly the time of slow-moving cinema, where extended durations were felt to be more meditative and “heady.” And while the film is only 71 minutes long, the plot still seems to drag, possibly because the animation style isn’t fluid, but more a series of stills. And, for all the scene-setting and build-up of the tensions between the species, the film ends rather abruptly when the humans discover the planet where the Draags’ minds go to meditate. Then, after one violent outburst, the Draags reveal their helplessness and relent to a peace settlement. It’s a wonderfully childlike and optimistic conclusion for conflict, but it feels cheap and rushed. The hippie messages and bright, surreal art certainly suggest that this movie would thrive with drug-induced viewings, but it’s simple themes also seem to relegate this to an entertaining historical curiosity.
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