Fantastic Planet (La Planete Sauvage) (Umbrella Ent) (1973) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Animation	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1973
Running Time	71:58
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	René Laloux
Studio Distributor	Umbrella Entertainment	Starring	Jean Valmont Barry Bostock Cynthia Adler Jennifer Drake Jean Topart Hal Smith
Case	Amaray-Opaque
RPI	?	Music	Alain Goraguer

Video (NTSC)		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Unknown	French Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.66:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	480i (NTSC)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.66:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     The planet Ygam is a very strange place, a planet occupied by huge, blue, intelligent humanoid aliens called Draags and a wild and surreal assortment of flora and fauna, many of which are quite dangerous. Also on Ygam are tiny human creatures called Oms, unlettered and unlearned; some of the Oms are domesticated as living toys/pets for Draag children while wild Oms are regularly hunted and massacred by Draags in a series of planned pogroms. When the Om Terr was a baby his mother was accidentally killed by Draag children playing with her. Terr is found by Tiwa, the daughter of important Draag Master Sinh, and she is allowed to keep Terr as a pet. Draag children learn their lessons through a headset which imparts knowledge to the wearer and Terr, growing up in the Draag household, comes to understand its potential.

     When Tiwa reaches her teens and is becoming an adult she loses interest in Terr, who steals the headset and runs away. He is found by wild Oms who are at first hostile but as Terr can read he is accepted into the clan, using the headset to educate those who are interested. But later, during a Draag pogrom, many Oms are killed and the survivors, including Terr, flee, finding refuge in an old Draag rocket scrapyard. For 15 years they remain hidden, using the headset to gain the knowledge to build two rockets to travel to Ygam’s moon where they hope to be safe from the Draags. However, when they arrive they find something very important; knowledge of a major weakness of the Draags, a knowledge which leads to a reconciliation between the two races.

     Fantastic Planet (La Planete Sauvage) is a 1973 French / Czech co-production directed Rene Laloux, based on the novel Oms en serie by Stefan Wul. The film is widely regarded as a social and political allegory for the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia, but whether it is or not is unimportant for, as a work of art, Fantastic Planet is a classic of European animation, an unusual and psychedelic film which won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes. The graphics by Roland Topor are stunning and like nothing else you are likely to see; the antithesis of realism they are flat-looking and often static with minimal movement of faces or limbs, the blue Draags with round faces, red eyes and shell-like ears are only the first of the fantastic array of creatures of all kinds that go with the dangerous plants and weird, often crystalline, landscapes. The visuals are augmented by the eerie, mesmerising, mostly electronic score by Alain Goraguer that can be as unsettling as the visuals.

     Fantastic Planet is a simple film, a humanist film that is inventive and intelligent. The animation style is very unusual and has not dated so it feels as fresh now as when the film was released over 40 years ago. Ideas, visuals and music; this is simply an amazing film.

Video

     Fantastic Planet is presented in the original 1.66:1 aspect ratio and is 16x9 enhanced. It is NTSC.

     A screen prior to the program states that the film was restored in 2016 from the original negative. Reviews of previous releases of the film have noted numerous artefacts and I have to say that this restoration looks wonderful. The colour scheme of the film is deliberately muted, with dull landscapes and skies, but it does occasionally add a burst of vivid colour including red and blue. Detail is firm, blacks solid, brightness and contrast consistent. Marks and artefacts are not seen, so the restoration seems to have done a great job of cleaning up the print.

     Optional English subtitles are provided in a clear white font. I noticed only one minor error; “L’ll” instead of “I’ll”.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     Audio is a choice of French or English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono at 224 Kbps. The film was shown theatrically with mono sound.

     I listened to the French track and sampled the English dub. Both were similar. Dialogue is always clean and easy to understand. Effects were limited but the eerie score by Alain Goraguer came across clearly and effectively.

    This is animation so the lip synchronisation is as one might expect. It was not distracting and pops, clicks and hisses were not present.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

     Nothing. The program starts without a menu. The default language is French, although the English track can be selected on the go via your remote.

     There have been various DVD and Blu-ray versions of Fantastic Planet released in different regions, most providing extras including some of Rene Laloux’s short films. As far as I can see there is not Blu-ray due for release in this country so I will stick to a comparison of DVDs, some of which are here. While they have the advantage where extras are concerned, the video of this Region All, NTSC release is superior.

     Fantastic Planet is a classic of European animation, an amazing, psychedelic sci-fi film of imagination, with surreal visuals and a mesmerising score that remains as relevant today as when it was made over 40 years ago.

    The film has been released in Australia previously, over a decade ago, but this release from Umbrella Entertainment is the restored version that looks tremendous. There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall