Visuals of “Fantastic Planet”

"Fantastic Planet"
(France/Czechoslovakia, 1973)
directed by René Laloux, based on the novel "Oms en Série" by Stefan Wul

Visuals/design of “Fantastic Planet” are created by French illustrator, painter, writer and filmmaker Roland Topor (1938 –1997). As soon as he was also a co-sriptwriter – I guess he enriched the script with fantastic landscapes and creatures that are very typical to Topor’s Surrealistic world of his graphic artworks and fits so well to science fiction genre because of a lot of space for fantasy and imagination.

+ nice blog about Topor with many pictures (in French):

http://toporetmoi.over-blog.com

Some examples of Topor’s artworks:

Technique

“Fantastic Planet” is made in cutout technique (cutout animation is a type of stop-motion animation produced by moving 2-dimensional pieces of material such as paper or cloth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animation). I assume that drawings are made with ink pen and coloured with watercolours or coloured pencils as most of the Topor’s pieces and with very typical crosshatching that compose the form of his fantastic objects.

"The technique itself is fascinating," wrote The New York Times. "Instead of using the traditional method of drawing on acetate, the ingenious producers have sketched on cut-out and hinged paper. This comparative stiffness of movement, instead of the usual animated flash, gives a dignity and eerie depth to an adaptation by directors René Laloux and Roland Topor of Stefan Wul's novel, 'Oms en série.' The story itself is a sci-fi honey."

http://www.uwec.edu/newsreleases/09/oct/1030FantasticPlanet.htm

Some examples from film „Fantastic Planet“:

Film "Fantastic Planet" visuals craetes atmosphere that also reminds Surrealist painter Giorgio de Chirico deserted landscapes.

+ I foun also another one interesting opinion about "Fantastic Planet" visuals by Chris Justice:

"Finally, the animation techniques used in Fantastic Planet are vital in understanding the evolution of global animation trends. The film exemplifies Laloux’s radical theory that extensive movement and character development do not necessarily coincide with metaphorical graphics in animation. While believing that the latter approach was more purely European and the former more American, Laloux was adept in Fantastic Planet at drawing the line between these two competing schools. Throughout, his graphics often resemble Renaissance or medieval gallery paintings. The compositions are often fixed and static, and movement within each frame is minimal at best. The compositions rely primarily on limited foregrounds, juxtaposed against middle grounds with limited action, coupled with backgrounds that contain minimalistic expressionist objects, figures and images. Graphics abound in symbolic imagery, and it is difficult to watch any scene without being aware of its symbolic and metaphorical potential. Historical and political allegories and not characters drive the movie. As the film unfolds, viewers are drawn more to the situations the characters find themselves in than the characters themselves. The film is filled with paper cutout images animated like hand puppets; the hand that eventually kills the mother Om early in the film is a good example. This style has often been associated with Terry Gilliam's comical Monty Python animations and creates an almost geometric, and therefore rigidly defined, sense of space, unlike the fluid watercolour-like designs of Disney."

(http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/05/35/fantastic_planet.html)