“STONER MOVIE DELUXE”

By Raymond Benson

Ah, how many of us took advantage of those wonderful psychedelic cinematic discoveries of the late sixties and early seventies, the kind that beckoned many a youth to view them in an altered state of mind? You know the ones—Yellow Submarine, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Fantasia (1969 re-release), Woodstock, El Topo, Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic, Allegro non troppo... and of course Fantastic Planet, a surprise European import that hit U.S. theaters in early 1974. It’s one of the stellar stoner movies that frequented the Midnight Movie houses around college campuses.

Directed by French animator René Laloux, with a production design by eccentric French illustrator Roland Topor, Fantastic Planet takes the audience to a very other-worldly place where humans are tiny vermin compared to the gigantic blue Draags (called Traags in previous translations), who are the superior race on the planet. In fact, Draag children often keep humans—known as “Oms”—as pets, teaching them tricks and keeping them imprisoned the way we might house a gerbil. Adult Draags, we learn, like to “meditate,” which is apparently a euphemism for participating in a cerebral, celestial orgy. While their bodies remain sedate, their consciousnesses are released inside floating colored bubbles that travel to a nearby “wild planet.” There, the bubbles attach to giant headless human-shaped statues, which then come to “life” and dance together. In other words, it’s how the Draags get off.

The story involves one human, Terr, who is captured in infancy by a young Draag and kept as a plaything. Terr grows up, escapes his master, and joins a band of feral humans to organize, rebel, and attempt to bring down the Draags.

It’s all very creepy and strange, but it’s also a brilliantly fascinating and entertaining film. The French-Czech co-production managed to win the Jury Prize at Cannes that year, the first time an animated feature had taken such an award. Certainly no other movie before or since looks like Fantastic Planet, for its eye candy exhibits a surrealism that echoes the work of Dalí, Ernst, or Magritte, but with a hallucinogenic science fiction sensibility. Add a mesmerizing electronic jazz score by Alain Gorageur, and you’ve got yourself one extremely trippy motion picture.

When first released in the U.S., the dialogue was dubbed in English. The new Criterion Collection disk features this optional soundtrack, but one must really watch and listen to the movie in the original French (with newly translated English subtitles) for the full alien effect.

The new 2K digital restoration is absolutely gorgeous. The colors are bright and vivid, bringing out the details of the drawn, “paper doll” animation. The audio is an uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Supplements include two short animated films made by Leloux and Topor—Les temps morts (1965) and Les escargots (1966)—and if you think the feature film is bizarre, wait until you see these! The disk also contains a 2009 documentary on Laloux, an episode of a French television program from 1974 about Topor and his work, a short interview with Topor from 1973, and the trailer.

After experiencing Fantastic Planet, you may feel as if you’ve jumped back to the 70s and want to say things like, “Far out, man,” or “roll another one.” Just be sure to Blu-ray responsibly. (“Whoa, he used Blu-ray as a verb!”)

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