16 French Animation Films

I was going to put these films with my upcoming French Horror, Thriller, New French Extremity and Fantasy packs which will contain 10 films each of said genres but I decided to do animation films in their own pack. ALL FILMS HAVE ENGLISH SUBTITLES OR ENGLISH AUDIO A Monkey's Tale (1999) A Monkey's Tale follows two tribes of - you guessed it, monkeys, separated by decades of mistrust and ignorance, until the rebellious Kom (Hill) falls from his tribe's treetop world into that of his sworn enemies. But when he realises that his supposed enemies are no different to him, he sets about bringing an end to the years of mutual disenchantment. Unbeknownst to him, the malevolent Chancellor Sebastian (Hurt) has other plans. It's up to Kom to stop the hideous primate before he manages to destroy the two tribes' newfound unity. Although this is an adequate animated feature with some strong visual images and well-rounded characterisation, A Monkey's Tale has an overly moral tone which restricts the fun aspects that you'd expect of a kid's 'toon. Even worse, the musical numbers are so poor that it'd shame a Townswomen's Guild production of Evita. Sadly average. Azur & Asmar: The Princes' Quest (2006) Boyhood pals grow up to be rivals in this striking animated fairy tale from French filmmaker Michel Ocelot. Azur is a blond, blue-eyed aristocrat who befriends Amar, the dark-skinned son of his nurse. The nurse wows them with stories about the Djin fairy who's waiting to be rescued by a prince in a far off land, so the grown Azur goes looking for the fairy. He finds more than he bargained for in this simplistic but visually charming story. The dubbed English version of this French-Arabic production leaves something to be desired: many of the voice actors sound stilted, partly because of the unsophisticated dialogue. The story is also slow, labouring too long on the boys' childhood hi-jinks when it's the adult adventures that really deliver. Azur's quest becomes involving when he arrives in a strange land where people with blue eyes are regarded as bad luck. His dramatic solution is to shut his eyes and feign blindness, a typically grand gesture for this fairy tale that deals in absolutes and symbolism rather than reality. "THERE'S A SERIOUS MESSAGE ABOUT RACISM" There's a serious message about racism and xenophobia that won't go unnoticed by either children or adults. But there's levity, too, as Azur meets a comedy sidekick - and there's visual splendour as he and Amar get close to their goal. The Princes' Quest can't match the standards of big-budget animations such as Ratatouille, but then it doesn't want to: it's a humbler affair with a distinct visual style and a story that's quietly charming despite its flaws. Chronopolis (1983) It took animator/filmmaker Piotr Kamler nearly half a decade to make this fantastic animated 3-D sci-fi film that is set in a futuristic city inhabited by powerful immortals who are utterly bored with the idea of eternity and so begin playing with time. Dougal and the Blue Cat (1970) I Guess That's Why They Call it The Blues Year: 1970 Director: Serge Danot Stars: Eric Thompson, Fenella Fielding Genre: Animated, Fantasy Review: Dougal the dog awakes one morning after a fitful sleep, and goes in search of his friend Zebedee. Once he finds him, Dougal tells a tale of his slumber being disturbed by mysterious goings on at the abandoned treacle factory on the hill, but he was too scared to investigate further. That same day, Florence and her friends are delighted to meet a blue cat called Buxton who has arrived in the Magic Garden, but jealous Dougal has his suspicions that Buxton may be connected to the events in the factory - and he's right. scripted by the director Serge Danot and Jacques Josselin, Dougal and the Blue Cat was the big screen version of the hit children's TV cartoon The Magic Roundabout. In Britain, this translated adaptation was written and narrated by Eric Thompson, and on TV had become something of a sensation there in the 1960s and 70s, because of Thompson's witty and eccentric way with the dialogue. To illustrate the cult following it had, there had been a public outcry when the BBC had changed the time of the broadcast to an earlier slot, and people arriving home from work were missing it. The programme was duly returned to its former place. This feature length story was different however. The television series had been five minute episodes of warm-hearted, inconsequential, and often surreal fun, but the film has a darker, more serious tone. It begins in a familiar fashion, with Dougal taking the train to see Zebedee ("It would be quicker to walk," he observes dryly) and meeting various characters on the journey. However, from the eerie flashback to Dougal's excursion to the factory, the tone is more creepy. It's still recognisably The Magic Roundabout, with Dougal's Tony Hancock persona intact, but the disaster that befalls the Magic Garden is unsettling. Buxton is being directed by the Blue Voice (Fenella Fielding) to take over the garden in return for limitless power; after running a gauntlet inside the factory he is crowned king and directs his troops to invade and turn the garden blue, with spiny cacti erupting from the ground, and Dougal's friends taken captive and chained up in a dungeon. Not what you'd expect from the TV series, and, believe it or not, there is an allegory about fascism in there, with Buxton and Madame Blue (who we never see, only hear) attacking everything that isn't blue. Obviously stretching out a typical five minute episode wasn't going to work, but the storyline Danot went with is unusual. That's not to say it isn't overlong, Thompson sounds like he's padding a little during the more self-conscious cuteness, and the song "We're Blue" comes across as laboured ("We're Blue! We're Blue! We're Blue!"). While the animation is as charming as ever and all the characters - cheery Brian, prim Ermintrude, sleepy Dylan - are present, I'm not sure if we really want to see Florence in tears and Zebedee with his moustache stolen. Perhaps a little too slow for today's children, Dougal and the Blue Cat nevertheless still has appeal in its combination of sweetness and weirdness for the grown-ups who are feeling indulgent. Aka: Pollux et le Chat Bleu Fantastic Planet (1973) dir. Rene Laloux writ. Roland Topor and Laloux (based on the novel The Savage Planet by Stefan Wul) cine. Lobomir Rejthan and Boris Baromykin graphic design Roland Topor graphics: Joseph Kabrt (characters), Joseph Vania (backgrounds) music Alain Goragner "Our planet Yon possesses a single satellite, Fantastic Planet. We utilize this uninhabited planet for meditation. Yon is divided into several ouvas. Two of the ouvas, Strohm and Yaht are natural and symmetrical...." This peculiar work is frequently dismissed by North American viewers as primitive, lacking the technical sophistication of fluid movement animation and integrated foreground/background isometrics. Yet this allegory of human regression and rebirth which uses the speculative fiction convention of symbolism by scale (the human Oms are the pets of the giant transcendentalist Drogs) demonstrates a psychological sophistication and art tradition that moves beyond the infantile animations of Disney and the American method. The Oms have self-destructed on their planet Terra and are now in a Stone-Age state on the planet Yon. The domesticated Oms live in the Park, the wild (outlaw) Oms live beyond the walls in the forest. The status quo is quickly established in the opening sequence, where a giant blue finger flicks an Om woman and her baby down the slope like a bug. The woman is killed and her baby is later discovered by two strolling Drogs, Tiva and her father, a member of the Drog ruling cabal. Like the Pharaoh's daughter finding and adopting the infant Moses, Tiva takes the baby home and inadvertently educates it during her subliminal Info lessons. It's a world of continual irony, based upon a reversal of fortune as elementary as that in Planet of the Apes, but in this instance showing human development in polar opposites: where we have come from (the wild Oms) and where we expect to evolve (the mystical Drogs). The human experience is expressed in both master and slave, thus the expected historical progression of revolt, war and political settlement occurs. While there are many amazing scenes and graphic whimsies along the way, the climax on the Fantastic Planet itself is the most interesting. Escaping "Omization" (gas extermination), two Om rocketships make it to the satellite that orbits Yon and find giant headless torsos standing like the forgotten effigies of a lost civilization on a Daliesque plain. This is the "Fantastic Planet", a conjunction for Drogs everywhere in their galaxy, a place for mating and reproduction. Drog youth navigate to this rutting field of the demi-gods in glass spheres that float like spore bubbles and attach themselves to the shoulders of a statue of the appropriate gender. The statues then begin to dance in pairs, a ritual that allows these astral beings the necessary physicality for reproduction and the continuation of their species. In danger of being crushed, the two Om ships open fire with their ray guns and wipe out the mating couples... causing a parallel chaos back on Yon, where the Drog elders are in telepathic contact. Faced with disaster, they immediately open negotiations with the Oms and peace follows, based upon a New Order: an artificial satellite (state) called Terra (in honour of their ancestral planet) is launched and henceforth both cultures are free to progress in harmony but with independent spiritual sky-cults. "...contrary to what one may think, the needs of graphics do not necessarily correspond to the needs of movement... consequently the American school ties drawing to animation... the European school to graphic imagery... Americans a taste for curved lines, quick movement and comedy, as well as an emphasis on character. In Europe, the emphasis on graphics favored the straight line, slow movement, fantasy and a lesser emphasis on the psychology of individual characters." (Rene Laloux) This reinvention of the Egyptian/Israelite mythology (combined with the more recent experience of the European Jew with the Nazis) uses the color blue as a symbolism for the astral consciousness for the Drogs and their sky-cult allegiance to the Fantastic Planet. While the micro world of the Oms is scaled to the organic topography of root tunnels and plant forests, it is also as bizarre as the interior of the human body, with roving creatures that resemble organs, and where red is the color of fear. The graphics are obviously drawn from the tradition of gallery painting, compositions structured in terms of stasis, two-dimensional space, and the symbolist artifice of the surrealists. The sub-text is driven by history and politics, the text by dream and expressionism. Gandahar (1988) With the auteur theory recently out of vogue, it's always interesting to remind ourselves of its validity by taking a look at the clearly evident stylistic consistencies of the work of particular directors. Take Sam Peckinpah. He collaborated with a number of cinematographers and editors over the years and yet the look and editing style of his films remains instantly recognisable, whoever was behind the camera or sitting at the Steenbeck. The same goes for French animator René Laloux, who despite working with a number of illustrators and animation studios seems to have put a very distinctive stamp on just about every film he made. Fantastic Planet (La Planète sauvage, 1973) remains probably his most internationally well known work. Gandahar, released in 1988, was to be his last. Like Fantastic Planet and the later Les Maîtres du temps (both of which are also available from Eureka! under the Masters of Cinema banner), Gandahar takes place on a planet whose similarities to our own are often abstracted through the imagery of dreams. The citizens of this world leave a peaceful, utopian existence that is suddenly disrupted by an invasion of marching, black-suited automatons who lay waste to entire communities by turning their inhabitants to stone and carting away the bodies. The ruling Council of Women agree to send Sylvian Lanvere, the son of the Queen Ambisextra, on a mission to discover the nature of the mysterious invaders and if possible destroy them. Despite his confident bravado, things don't go quite to plan. His ship crash lands and he is rescued by a mutated tribe who describe themselves as 'The Deformed', then is frozen and captured by the invading army. He quickly recovers from his petrified state, however, and teams up with female fellow prisoner Airelle in an effort to complete his quest. Right from the opening frames we're in typically imaginative Laloux territory, with flying fish caught not with nets or lines but by enticing them onto ships with the music of flutes. It's this sort of detail and texturing that makes Laloux's films so consistently fascinating, enriching every scene and creating a tapestry of shifting surrealistic artwork against which the story plays out. Memorable images abound: the typically oversized and bizarre vegetation; the wing-headed leader of the Council of Women; the first appearance of The Deformed in the shape of a headless warrior whose face adorns his torso; the sea mist with the characteristics of playful animals; the seed that grows rapidly into a spiked plant to release Sylvian and Airelle from the egg-shaped prison; the animal that is nothing more than a wing that transforms when it comes to land; the army of marching automatons; the climactic image of a giant head transported by mirror birds... I could go on. The imagery is enhanced by the sometimes excellent soundtrack, notably in the well performed voice work and the unsettling blend of electronic hum, stormtrooper marching and mechanical breathing that accompanies the advancing automatons, an audio-visual creation that really is the stuff of childhood nightmares. The icing on the cake is an atmospheric, other-worldly electronic score by Gabriel Yared, whose film music CV makes impressive reading and who not so long ago bagged an Oscar for his score for Cold Mountain. An early suspicion that the story is designed primarily as a frame on which to hang the imagery is dispelled by its later complexity, the mid-film reveal recalling the temporal shift of Les Maîtres du temps, but occurring early enough here to become central to the narrative rather than a final ironic twist. It's a development cryptically signalled by a peculiarity of speech employed by The Deformed, one that looks initially like a subtitle error but which make perfect sense when later recalled. As is common with adult science fiction, modern issues are woven into the story, including the favourite genre warning of the hidden price to be paid for utopia, from the results of failed genetic engineering to the possible consequences of long-term pacifism, a view that will be unlikely to meet with universal agreement. Working with illustrator Philippe Caza, Laloux created in Gandahar one of his most artistically satisfying films, the animation by the North Korean Pyongyang studio among the best in the director's feature career. Particularly pleasing is the consistency – there's no trace of the multi-team discrepancies of design and movement that marked Les Maîtres du temps. The result is a most worthy swansong for a distinctive and imaginative artist, and the sort of film that leaves you aching for the projects that René Laloux, in a career spanning twenty-eight years but just three features and five short films, was unable to even get off the ground. The film was previously released in English-speaking countries as Light Years, a recut version presided over by Miramax big cheese Harvey Weinstein, whose apparently (and outrageously) awarded himself a director credit for this particular piece of cinematic barbarism. The Miramax version features a heavily re-edited first half-hour, an extended ending constructed from some of the excised footage, and an introductory quote from Isaac Asimov, who was also hired to 'naturalise' the dialogue, leading many to believe the film was an adaptation of his work (it was actually adapted from Jean-Pierre Andrevon's Metal Men Against Gandahar). The French language track was, of course, re-dubbed by American and English actors, including Glenn Close, Bridget Fonda, Jennifer Grey and Christopher Plummer. Thankfully (and, I would like to think, inevitably) the version on Eureka's DVD is the French original. Kaena: The Prophecy (2003) France has a strong comic book and fantasy culture, with artists such as Moebius and Alejandro Jodorowsky creating imaginary worlds shared by a large readership. It was only a matter of time, then, before a French CGI fantasy would make it to the movies. With the A-list talent of Kirsten Dunst, Richard Harris, and Anjelica Huston providing the American voices, "Kaena - The Prophecy" offers stunning eye candy but little by the way of a fresh story. The heroine of the title (voice of Dunst) is the buxom daughter of a tribe of tree-dwellers who live in an odd environment they hardly understand: on a massive, floating forest they call "the axis," Kaena's people collect sap and offer it to their gods under the guidance of an overzealous priest. But the gods are angry, and they have an agenda of their own. Can Kaena rescue her tribe from destruction? You betcha. What follows is the standard heroic quest, and the many allusions to every other science-fiction/fantasy film you've ever seen are unavoidable. What makes "Kaena" interesting anyway is the artwork: strange worlds, cyborg worms, and liquefied aliens offer some eye-popping sights, along with Kaena's oversized digital breasts, which get a lot of untoward attention. Raining Cats and Frogs (2003) It's a catastrophe! A flood has hit our planet and an unusual group of people are all that remains. Led by Ferdinand, a modern day Noah, this little group have managed to defy the furiously raging elements. People and animals alike are dragged through this incredible whirlpool of an adventure Le roi et l'oiseau (1980) Widely regarded as one of the finest animated films in cinema history, Le Roi et l’oiseau was the product of a legendary partnership between Paul Grimault and Jacques Prévert. The former was the leading animator in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, the latter was arguably the most gifted and well-known of French film screenwriters. Grimault and Prévert worked together on a number of projects but this is by far their most successful and popular collaboration (although it was completed two years after Prévert’s death). The film began life in 1949 as an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale, The Shepherdess and the Chimneysweep. Before the film was completed, there was a major production dispute which resulted in both Grimault and Prévert walking away from the project. The film was completed without Grimault and was released in 1953 under the title: La Bergère et le Ramoneur. Twenty years later, Paul Grimault decided to return to the project and complete it as he had envisaged. When the film was released in 1980 as Le Roi et le oiseau, it proved to be a great success both with critics and cinema audiences. The film won the prestigious award, the Prix Louis Delluc, in 1979. In restoring and completing the film, Grimault was scrupulously careful to retain the look and feel of the original film. Although released in 1980, the film has the authentic look of a late 1940s animated feature. This dated look contrasts strikingly with the incredibly imaginative plot, which includes some mind-blowing surreal twists and turns. The film has the charm and poetry of Andersen’s original fairytale, but it offers much more in the way of entertainment, and is hilariously funny in places. With its obvious references to brutal oppression and totalitarianism, it is not difficult to see France’s World War II experiences reflected in the film. What makes the film most effective, however, is the richness of the characterisation, which is at least on a par with, if not better than, that seen in the best Disney features. The king, despite his villainy, is a rather pathetic creature for whom we have some sympathy, whilst his nemesis, the mockingbird, makes an unusual hero but one that you instantly warm to. Whilst children the world over should love Le Roi et le oiseau, it also has great appeal to adults. The quality of the animation and wealth of imagination in the script makes it an enduring work of art which greatly surpasses the majority of animated films which have been made since. In simplest terms, Le Roi et le oiseau is a timeless classic. Synopsis The kingdom of Takicardie quakes under the rule of the tyrannical King Charles V-et-III-font-VIII-et-VIII-font-XIV, whose favourite pastime is shooting birds. His archenemy is a cheeky mockingbird, whose favourite pastime is thwarting the king’s attempts to shoot birds. One night, a portrait of the king comes to life and disposes of the real king, taking his place. The portrait king falls in love with a young shepherdess in another painting and intends to marry her. But, alas, the shepherdess has fallen in love with a chimneysweep and together they elope from the king’s palace. Enraged, the king sends his police to capture them and once they are within his power he forces the shepherdess to marry him. The mockingbird must use all his guile and courage to once more thwart the king and bring his evil reign to an end. Persepolis (2007) I must confess that I have always thought graphic novels were just comic books with literary pretensions. I casually dismissed them as a symptom of our culture’s increasing infantilisation; adults read books, children stories with pictures. Well, having seen Persepolis - a faithful translation of the graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi - I’m happy to admit I was wrong. Written and directed by Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, this is pop culture’s equivalent of Dr Zhivago: a big, beautifully woven tale of the personal and the political. We get an engrossing history lesson about Iran that is full of bitter twists, broken dreams and human heartbreak, shaped as a family saga acted out against the historical backdrop of revolution, war and repression. It has heart, humour and the intimacy of the best-written of biographies. The film starts out in Tehran in 1978. The repressive Shah is locking up protesters and torturing dissidents to save his shaky grip on power. But what does precocious nine-year-old Marjane (voiced by Chiara Mastroianni) care? She has the carefree existence of a little girl who loves Bruce Lee and french fries with ketchup. Marjane’s politically active parents (Sean Penn voices her dad, Catherine Deneuve her mother) and her communist Uncle Anouche (Iggy Pop) are delighted when the Shah is eventually overthrown. “Whatever the outcome, it can’t be worse than the Shah,” says Uncle Anouche, who ends up being killed by the new regime of Islamic fundamentalists. On one level, the film is a tribute to Marjane’s family, to her wise and caring grandmother (Gena Rowlands) and to the bravery of her parents. What the film dramatises so well is the difficulty parents face in trying to give their children a normal childhood during an abnormal time. Do we protect our children from the truth and tales of torture, or use these truths to help them grow? Marjane is one of the great preteenage heroines in literature. Rebellious, inquisitive and opinionated, she is forever using her wits to hold onto her freedom. There’s something wonderful about seeing this young Iranian girl walking through the streets of Tehran with “Punk Is Not Ded” scrawled on her back. They may make her wear a veil over her head, but they can’t veil her mind. As a young teenager, Marjane is sent off to a French school in Austria for her own safety. She soon teams up with a group of anarchists and nihilists, and the film becomes a funny coming-of-age story, as she struggles with her Iranian identity and the problems of fitting in. The homesick Marjane returns to a Tehran where you can’t party, drink, dress or think as you please. It’s a vivid and scary portrait of a modern totalitarian state. There’s the constant fear that, at any moment, there will be a knock at the door and a loved one will be taken away. I’m not sure Satrapi wanted to make this point, but you can’t watch this film without leaving the cinema with a fresh appreciation of the everyday freedoms we in the West enjoy and take for granted. Once back in Iran, Marjane tries her best to fit in, and gets married – but love, like revolution, frequently disappoints. She gets a divorce and starts to build a new life, which begins with a dance sequence based on Eye of the Tiger. The film’s frequent use of pop-culture references gives the viewer an immediate identification with Marjane and her world – although, in showing that Iranians are just like us, Satrapi has lost what is unique about Iranians. This is a narrative-driven account of history, and rather thin on political and cultural analysis. In one scene, an official yells at Marjane’s mother: “I bang whores likeyou and throw them in the dustbin.” You wonder if the casual misogyny displayed by so many men lies at the root of the Iranian revolution. But Satrapi offers no explanation for the success of totalitarianism in her beloved country, other than the standard critique of the CIA and the West’s hunger for oil. The film looks unique, however. In our age of computer-driven animation, it’s refreshing to see what an artist can do with simple lines that have the eloquence and min-imalism of a woodcarving. And Satrapi uses the influences of German expressionism and Italian neo-realism to great effect, creating a powerful journey into the past. Princes and Princesses (2000) Synopsis A young man and woman sitting in a cinema with an older man watch six stories on the screen in front of them, in each of which the former two appear as the protagonists. In the first of these, "La Princesse des Diamants," a prince tries to free an enchanted princess by finding the one-hundred and eleven diamonds of her necklace that have been scattered throughout a field. In the second, "Le Garçon des Figues," which is set in ancient Egypt, a young peasant presents a succulent fig to his queen, for which he earns her esteem and the hatred of the intendant of her palace. In the third, "La Sorcière," a Medieval king promises to give his daughter in marriage to whichever man is able to enter the castle of a sorceress. The fourth tale, "Le Manteau de la Vieille Dame," relates how an old woman living in Early Nineteenth Century Japan forces a thief to carry her on his back to various sights after he attempts to rob her of her beautiful coat. "La Reine Cruelle et le Montreur de Fabulo," the fifth story, revolves around a pitiless queen living in the year 3000, who has sworn to marry the first man who can evade detection by her mega-radar until the setting of the sun and to kill with her disintegrator ray those she catches, and the trainer of a fabulo, a strange singing beast, who accepts her challenge. The final narrative, "Prince et Princesse," reveals the transformations of a young prince who is successively changed into a toad, a butterfly, a fish, a rhinoceros, and several other creatures by the kisses of a princess, who is herself changed into a slug, a praying mantis, a giraffe, a blue whale, and still other animals by his kisses. Analysis Michel Ocelot's animated Princes et Princesses is a delightful work that is sure, for most of its duration, to enthrall and enchant the viewer. Perhaps the film's most appealing element is the animation the director has employed, which is both unique and elegant. The characters and the objects around them are drawn as silhouettes against a luminous background that varies from gold to blue to pink to some other hue. The images Ocelot has so created resemble shadow puppets, like those that can be seen in Lotte Reiniger's magnificent The Adventures of Prince Achmed, although they are, in fact, clearly drawings. While the film may never be as visually enchanting as is that earlier work, it is still remarkably lovely. The director has given life to a strange, shadowy, and magical world that so readily bewitches the viewer that he is bound to lose himself in its rarefied beauty. Fortunately, the tales Ocelot tells are as well realized and charming as are the images he has crafted. Most have the feel of actual folktales and are infused with that timelessness and profundity such narratives have. While they are brief and simply told, the stories are still able to capture the moviegoer's fancy and leave him touched by the troubles and triumphs of their heroes, as well as by the diverse wonders they encounter. The viewer is thus sure to be delighted when he sees how, in "La Princess des Diamants," the young prince is unexpectedly rewarded for his kindness, how the intendant in the second tale is punished for his spitefulness, how the sorceress of the next story employs various mechanical devices to defend her home, including a robotic dragon that swallows cannon balls and shoots them back at her foes from out its posterior, how the old woman of the antepenultimate tale is taken to different locations, at one or another of which she relishes the beauty of flowers, of the bare branches of a tree, of the moon, and of Mt. Fuji, how, in the following story, the cruel queen hunts for her suitors, who have hidden themselves in various outlandish locations, such as in a submarine in the belly of a whale in the sea, and kills them with her disintegrator gun, and how, in the last, the prince and princess are transformed into a succession of different beasts and all the while squabble about the propriety of kissing each other. The framing story which binds these narratives together is, regrettably, not as captivating as they are. It has its charming moments and its two young characters are pleasant and sweet, but, more often, it is merely an interruption through which the viewer must wait. Even if it does not quite achieve greatness, Princes et Princesses is a joyous, magical work. It is, in fact, so unique and charming that watching it is a real pleasure. Renaissance (2006) Paris, 2054. When Ilona Tassueiv (Garai) is kidnapped, her employer, Avalon, a giant multinational, want her found at any cost. The gendarmarie sent in Bartholomew Karas (Craig), a specialist in hostage retrieval and the most controversial cop on the force, at the request of Dellenbach (Pryce), Avalon’s CEO. Karas digs up links between Ilona, who was one of Avalon’s star researcher, and the disgraced scientist Jonas Muller (Holm). As Ilona’s mentor, he encouraged her research; she was particularly interested in Progeria, diseases of premature aging in children. Going to Ilona’s apartment to search for clues, Karas meets Bislane, Ilona’s beautiful older sister. Bislane is the opposite of Ilona, living on the wrong side of the tracks and at home in Karas’ world. The two begin a romance, but Bislane is following clues of her own – on the night Ilona was kidnapped she visited Dmitri, a Russian drug dealer and friend of Bislane’s. Meanwhile, as Karas gets closer to the truth, people around him start dying; mysterious assassins follow him, and he realises that not just Ilona, but the future of humanity itself may be at stake. Renaissance is set in a futurescape familiar from Minority Report and a thousand other sci-fi films. Advertising is everywhere, and most of it focuses on the eternal quest for youth – the ubiquitous Avalon Corporation being at the head of this search, Its never really made clear what Avalon does or sells, it just is. Juxtaposed with this future landscape is the classic Chandleresque detective; Karas, like Deckard in Blade Runner, is the only man for the job, the outsider, in this labyrinthine urban jungle. The story exploits classic film noir elements but gives them a modern visual style. The French team of animators have used motion capture and computer animation to create a quirky 3D world; it’s a stylish and unique view of future Paris. It doesn’t work as well with people – sometimes it feels like an issue of Bunty come to life. But sadly where the film falls apart is the story, which is unnecessarily complicated and difficult to follow. This may be, partly, because it’s sometimes difficult to identify who the characters are due to the black and white line drawings. The film has been compared to Sin City; maybe what lets it down is that the French mo-cap cast are much less recognisable. Time Masters (1982) It seems, in retrospect, a little odd that the work of French animator René Laloux is so hard to track down in the UK, given the positive critical response that his 1973 Fantastic Planet (La Planète sauvage) continues to prompt. Mind you, even Fantastic Planet eventually did a vanishing act, disappearing from public view following some years after its cinema release and becoming one of those films that you could read all about but not see, a situation last year's DVD release from Eureka! finally laid to rest. Les Maîtres du temps (Time Masters) was Laloux's follow-up to Fantastic Planet, although the nine year gap between the two films almost calls for alternative terminology. Stylistically they're unmistakably the work of the same director, particularly in the electronic score, the dream-like atmosphere and the surrealistic creature and landscape design. That said, Les Maîtres du temps kicks off in the style of a Hollywood actioner, the sort of urgent, high speed opening usually employed to assure short-attention-span audiences that there'll be some more of this soon if you can just wait a few minutes while we lay out the plot. Here it's a chase, or half of one, as the adult Claude and his young son Piel flee in their insect-like land vehicle from an attack by giant hornets. While attempting to keep the truth from Piel – the hornets have killed his mother, after all – Claude desperately attempts to contact his friend Jaffar, who we soon learn is not even on this planet. Jaffar's not answering, so Claude leaves a message, a usefully brief bit of exposition that outlines the seriousness of their situation and their intention to head to the Dolongs, a vegetated region that has René Laloux written all over it. No sooner do they arrive than Claude crashes the vehicle and is mortally wounded. He urges the still unaware Piel to run and hide, giving him an egg-shaped microphone which will enable him to communicate with Jaffar. This 3-minute sequence is the setup for a relatively straightforward plot involving Jaffar's journey to the planet Perdide to rescue Piel before the hornets hunt him out. The pleasures, and there are many, come from the detail. Jaffar is from the Han Solo school of space travellers and is, for a sizeable fee, transporting Prince Matton and his female companion Belle to the planet of Aldebaran. Matton's on the run, having nabbed the entire contents of his planet's public treasury, and is not best pleased when his mission is put on hold for the rescue bid. Under a cloak of indifference, he does his sneaky best to sabotage things, while Belle takes pity on Piel and uses the communicator to reassure and comfort him. Having grasped only the basics of his father's instructions, Piel believes that the egg is actually a creature named Mike and that the voices emanating it are those of his diminutive new friend, a concept that sails perilously close to cuteness but just about comes off. Jaffar's journey is interrupted to drop in on and recruit the help of old friend Silbad, a cheerful, kindly, white bearded old codger of the sort Will Geer might have played had this been made as a live action piece in 1970s Hollywood (not likely, as it happens). It's from here that Laloux's imagination really starts to runs free, particularly in the floating, saucer-like shrews that give birth to a gaggle of small floating telepaths, two of whom, named Yula and Jad, join the crew and are the first to suspect Matton's wrongdoing when they sniff out his bad thoughts. Equally memorable are an army of faceless angels under the control of a creature composed of pure thought, a solid science fiction concept undone by an unlikely dose of old-fashioned (and very suddenly discovered) nobility. Where this film significantly differs from its illustrious predecessor is in consistency of design and animation – Fantastic Planet has it, Les Maîtres du temps doesn't, the result of working with six different teams of illustrators over an 18 month period after the project had been moved to Hungary to keep production costs down. Jaffar in particular looks and moves like a Master of the Universe, whereas the animation of the impish Yula and Jad is a constant delight. This variance in style is matched by a couple of offbeat shifts in tone that include two songs (well, one and a half) and some Disney-esque comic relief involving nicely animated creatures that Craig Keller, in the accompanying booklet, likens uncharitably to Jar-Jar Binks. That's pushing it a bit, but I can see where he's coming from. None of which should put you off in the slightest – if anything this variance of style and tone adds to the film's quirky charm. Les Maîtres du temps is an engaging and inventive slice of animated science fiction that rides on its art and its imagination and has oodles of both. There are even a couple of late surprises and a neat final twist for those who thought the plot was looking a bit by the numbers. Of particular interest to sf fans will be the ship designs, which were the work of genre legend Jean 'Moebius' Giraud. I particularly liked Jaffar's control deck, a sort of open plan living room encased in a large glass dome, somewhere to steer the ship, relax, and watch the stars. Now THAT'S the way to travel. Jungle Burger (1975) Shame, the ape man of the jungle, is aghast when his woman, June, is kidnapped by a gang of giant penises. They take her to their queen, Bazunga, a bald woman with fourteen breasts. After tangling with a gang of great white hunters, a marauding lion and the Molar Men, Shame sets off to rescue her with only his faithful friend Flicka at his side. He heads for that darkest of areas ..... Bush Country! Belleville Rendez-Vous (2003) You simply can't imagine how weird and wonderful and lovely this film is. I can go on and on about its odd beauty, how it's like nothing you've ever seen and at the same time like a recurring dream you can always just barely remember when you wake up, and still you'll be astonished by it. Because words fail. The Triplets of Belleville must be experienced. I could not truly convey what it's like to laze in its saucy, sweet otherworldliness if I sat here for hours trying to find a precise turn of phrase. But I'll try. You can get a taste of it from the trailer, but even that quick-cut two-minute condensation doesn't do it justice, because the film unfolds slowly, like a revelation, like a found treasure that mustn't be rushed. And you're glad that its creator, Sylvain Chomet, in his first animated feature, took his leisurely time -- you want to drink in and savor every peculiar face, fond caricatures all, and every fantastical neighborhood we travel through, they're all so unexpected and delightful. A film like Triplets can't help but point out how creatively bankrupt animation outfits like Disney or DreamWorks have become, locked into tired formulas that even they seem bored with -- has there recently been a less inspired animated film than Brother Bear? But there's nothing formulaic about Triplets. Oh, it's about a boy and his dog, sure, but that's about the extent of anything that could even remotely be called cliché, because the boy, named Champion, has an all-consuming obsession with bicycling and the dog, Bruno, has strange dreams about the merry-go-round of his doggy life, dictated by schedules beyond his control: of Champion's exercise routine, of the regular trains that run past their house, trains at which it is his self-appointed job to bark. And there's Champion's grandmother, Madame Souza, who hits the road with Bruno when Champion is kidnapped right from the middle of the Tour de France by two enigmatic MIBs, following Champion's trail over the sea to the city of Belleville, where she falls in with a retired trio of singing spinster sisters, the titular triplets. But it's not even its unlikely and original story -- and that's just the beginning of it -- that makes the film so indescribably unique. It's the whole package deal of fantasy metropolises, dream versions of Paris and New York drawn like something you'd find in a classic and especially charming comic book, and song and dance and bizarre humor and tender affections and mythical mysteriousness. It's like the Marx Brothers and Fred Astaire and Tim Burton and the people who make romantic, old-fashioned postcards of great cities collaborated on a nearly silent tale of love and adventure -- with all the finger-snapping music, you hardly notice that there's hardly any dialogue, that the story is told almost entirely visually, marvelously expressive faces telling us all we need to know. You simply must beg your local multiplex to show The Triplets of Belleville, or drive to a city somewhere where it's playing, and not miss this film. Because I cannot do it justice except perhaps by saying that this is the kind of movie that reminds you why you fell in love with movies in the first place, and those are so rare that you can't let a single one pass you by. The PianoTuner of EarthQuakes (2005) The second feature film of the Quay twins, Timothy and Stephen, after 1995's Institute Benjamenta, The Piano Tuner Of Earthquakes is a idiosyncratic mixture of live action (on sets) and animation. Though nominally more accessible than the earlier film, this is still very much an acquired taste, with its mixture of fascinating visuals and ponderously paced fable-like drama. The story, enacted by a series of international actors speaking English in a variety of accents, is set in a vaguely 18th or 19th century Mediterranean world. Dr Emmanuel Droz (John) is obsessed with opera singer Malvina van Stille (Casar). He fakes her death the night before her wedding to Adolfo (Saracho), abducts her, and takes her to his secluded villa on an island. Droz's life's work involves the construction of peculiar automata, which litter the island and make a form of music dependent on the tides. Droz calls Felisberto (Sarachu), a piano tuner, to the island, to have him maintain the automata. Felisberto takes on this professional challenge, but soon becomes intrigued by Droz's strange world, notably by the beautiful voice he hears in the night and traces to the forlorn figure of Malvina. Despite the seductive attentions of Droz's somewhat kinky "housekeeper" Assumpta (Serna), Felisberto is drawn to Malvina and resolves to try and save her. But Droz has his own plans concerning both the singer and the piano tuner.

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jungledas (2010-07-01)

Beautiful upload
Are there any of those in french or all in english?

forcefox (2010-07-01)

A few films are in English and the others are in French with English Subtitles

MissLucifer666 (2010-07-06)

Please seed your torrent!!

Plasmadude (2011-09-07)

What is this freaky shit?
Not at all appropriate for children.
and only a few are in french

DisOrder08 (2012-05-27)

Sweet Collection!
Thanks for sharing...and thanks for the descriptions!