Fantastic Planet (#820)

Nothing else has ever looked or felt like director Ren Lalouxs 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.

SPECIAL FEATURES

New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray

Alternate English-language soundtrack

Les temps morts (1965) and Les escargots (1966), two early short films by director Ren Laloux and illustrator Roland Topor

Laloux sauvage, a 2009 documentary on Laloux

Episode of the French television program Italiques from 1974 about Topors work

Interview with Topor from 1973

Trailer

New English subtitle translation

PLUS: An essay by critic Michael Brooke