This french-czech animated film was inspired by a book called "Oms en sĂŠrie" from 1957. It received much praise back when it appeared not least a jury prize in Cannes. I suppose the jury is particularly fond of french or animated films specifically, because i have a hard time figuring out exactly what is so great about it to warrant such praise
Some time in the future humans have been abducted from earth by some huge blue aliens, draag´s, from a distant planet. They have somehow let the humans, which they call Om´s room free in the wilderness of the planet, keeping just a few as pets for their pleasure.
A Om boy called Terr is kept as a pet by a girl draag, Tiva. She plays with him and trains him to obey her. He also receives some of her education by headphone, since his collar can receive the messages she hears. But when Tiva reaches puberty and looses interest in Terr, he escapes out into the wild with the headphone. He finds a tribe of wild Om´s living in an abandoned park, that the draags no longer use.
Using the knowledge they can gain from the headphone, they are able to figure out that the draags have decided to cut down the size of the Om population by extermination. When they are attacked by two random draags, a few manage to escape to an old rocket launch site. As the time goes more Om´s gather there and by using information from the headphone, they manage to shrink rockets and spareparts to Om size and prepare leaving the planet to go to the moon The Fantastic Planet.
When they reach the new planet, they find large statues that the draag use for contacting beings from other worlds to uphold their survival by doing some dance. When the Oms destroy some of the statues, the draags ask for an armistice and they all end up living together in peace and benefit each other.
There is an underlying theme where the usual view from a human point, has been turned on its head, so we see things from the other "end". Humans are really the draag´s and the Om´s are a metaphor for other living beings or even other races maybe, that "we" treat like vermin. It is too naive the way it is executed and it almost has the opposite effect when i am having trouble identifying with any of the "races" in the film.
There are clearly political messages in here. And this need to put it into this single-minded framework of the political correctness of the day removes focus from the weird charm that the film really has. I liked the strange creatures and landscape that the Oms live in, but the unbending need to politicize everything, more or less concealed, destroys that charm.
There is a fairly long sequence dealing with the childhood of Terr and his master , and it seems too long considered how fast the vastly more "complicated" escape and finale, is rounded off. There is also a problem for me in that it is not too clear whether this is supposed to be for adults or children. If it is for children i am not too fond of the big focus on the political story and if it is for adults, much of the animation looks too naive or childish to make it interesting for an adult.
I actually like the Salvador Dali´ish surrealist planet environment and how i wished that the story would be more connected with the weird stuff there,instead of the politics. There are many large views where the Om´s are just little black moving dots. This is not good animation in my view and it puts the viewer too much in god mode and to little in a close engaging mode. It just killed a lot of the interest in the actual characters in the film.
I saw it with the original audio track and texting. Afterwards i tried with the US dubbed track and i felt better. So if you are not french i think i will recommend the US dub. The music audio track is fairly good and it is also very typical for that time slot. A jazzy, psych-prog rock that adds a few electronic sounds now and then. It would not have hurt if the soundscape had had a little less hippie-stoner rock appeal and a lot more space ambient appeal instead, but i guess that is just my opinion.
This is the kind of movie that you either find very charming or not interesting at all. It is not my cup of tea. It is too political, too pretentious and the plot is too uneven and uninteresting and naive for my taste. The weirdness is certainly there and it is in it self quite charming, but it feels like filler for the eye instead of an integral part of the film.
Rating: 4/10
