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Director: René Laloux
Release date: March 24, 1981
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
In the science fiction film ‘Les maîtres du temps’ Jaffar, the muscular pilot of a spaceship, tries to rescue the little orphan Piel, who is the sole survivor of a massacre on the dangerous planet Perdide.
Jaffar’s only means of contact with the little boy is through an egg-shaped microphone which Piel calls ‘Mike’. Jaffar is aided by a jolly old man called Silbad, and two little telepathic creatures Silbad rescued from a flower, called Jad and Yula. His only passenger, however, the evil prince Matton, on escape with a treasure, tries to kill Piel in order to get sooner to Aldebaran…
‘Les maîtres du temps’ was René Laloux’ second animated feature film and it shares many characteristics with his first, ‘Le planète sauvage‘: it’s a science fiction film based on a novel by Stefan Wul and using designs by a famous french illustrator, this time comic artist Moebius (Jean Giraud). ‘Les maîtres du temps’ nevertheless is less outlandish than ‘Le planète sauvage’: it’s an ‘ordinary’ cel animation film and Moebius’s drawings are less surreal than Topor’s. Yet, they still manage to give the film an otherworldly quality. Especially his designs of Perdide are disturbing, rendering it an uncanny, dangerous planet, indeed.
Moebius’s style is very visible throughout the picture, except for the humans, who are drawn pretty uglily and fail to live up to Moebius’s own high standards. Only the little orphan Piel and the jolly old man Silbad are true to Moebius’s designs. Consequently, they are both very believable and likeable characters, where the others remain flat cardboard examples of ‘the hero’, ‘the beautiful woman’ and ‘the villain’. Their animation, too, remains stiff and unconvincing In contrast, the funny little gnomes Jad and Yula are rendered very flexible and are responsible for some of the most beautiful animation in the film, which was practically all done by the Hungarian Pannonia Film Studio.
‘Les maîtres du temps’ is far from perfect, but mainly thanks to Piel’s character, with whom we can identify immediately, it’s a film with a heart. This, combined with some impressive science fiction images, especially of Perdide and of the planet Gamma 10, make the film one to return to over and over again.
After ‘Les maîtres du temps’ Laloux would make yet another Science fiction feature, now based on drawings by French comic artist Caza: ‘Gandahar‘. Unfortunately, it would prove to be the weakest of the trio.
Watch the trailer for ‘Les maîtres du temps’ yourself and tell me what you think:
Director: René Laloux
Release Date: 1988
Rating: ★★★★½
Review:
‘La Prisonnière’ is a short, rather surrealistic science fiction film about two children.
They visit an extraterrestrial monastery and witness a rescue of a prisoner by naked women who step out of a stranded whale.
The film looks like an animated version of designer Caza’s source comic, Équinoxe (which can be found here), and contains only a limited amount of animation. In his designs Caza’s style is very reminiscent of that of his fellow french comic artist Moebius.
‘La prisonnière’ seems like an etude for Laloux’s and Caza’s much bigger project, the feature film ‘Gandahar‘ (1988). The atmosphere of the short is poetic, if completely incomprehensible.
Watch ‘La Prisonnière’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘La Prisonnière’ is available on the DVD ‘Gandahar’
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