Hyde Park Picture House’s Creatures of the Night: Fantastic Planet Review

 Creatures was back in full flow last weekend, with the start-up of a loyalty card bringing the sci-fi great and good out of their time machines to watch this week’s Cannes Prize winning animation.

The audience was transported to the savage planet of Ygam. A world where forty to one hundred foot (estimates vary) blue humanoid giants with crustacean ears lord it over a race of humans ‘Om’s’ – It’s a French joke. The Om’s use their human cunning to break free of their oppressors, eventually founding a civilisation on an artificial planetoid called the Fantastic Planet.

This film waves the brave flag of European animation. There’s not much of it, at least compared to the States (Disney) and Japan (Anime). Fantastic Planet puts up a good fight. I have never seen animation quite like this; it’s as if Philip K. Dick and Hieronymus Bosch had a talented baby together and this is the outcome. This is an important film for animation buffs. Instead of the traditional animation technique of drawing on acetate, the creators of this French-Czech film sketched on cut-out and hinged paper. This lends laborious rigour to the film, conveying a sense of epic struggle and Bible like fable. Animation of this length is a real labour of creative love, and every few seconds there is something – a shadow or an object – which is different, interesting, and the product of an interesting artist.

Adapted by Rene Laloux from Stefan Wul’s Ome En Serie  - a sci-fi novel written during the quiet times at his dentist surgery – Fantastic Planet offers the best of sci-fi animation; it even stood up to a re-watch in the cold light of Sunday morning. Part of the films charm comes from its inventiveness. The landscape, and the creatures that inhabit it, really are fantastic. The backdrop is spikey, phallic and hostile. Shades of red are laid out under an ominous grey sky. Monsters abound, ranging from strange little silk weavers, to armless T-rex’s used for gladiatorial combat. The animation is less frantic than Disney or Anime, and is special for it. The picture slides over panoramic stillness of human emotion, the overarching theme of this film.

The film opens with a bare breasted (don’t worry, it’s tasteful) female Om running for her life. She is clutching a baby – turns out he’s the protagonist – and appears terrified. The cause of her distress becomes apparent when a huge hand crashes down and flicks her. A few flicks later and she dies. A kind hearted Draag –that’s the 40/100 foot blue giants – takes pity on the baby and raises him as a pet, calling him Terre. (it’s another French joke) She controls Terre by means of a space-age collar which drags him back to her whenever she chooses. The Draag gets so attached to Terre that she starts taking him to her lessons; information he later uses to get one up on her race.

As the plot unfolds Terre escapes, shedding his collar with the help of a beautiful savage Om – again bare breasted. Terre quickly becomes an important figure in the Big Tree Tribe, who has settled in a little used park. The tribe is sworn enemies with the Hollow Log Bandits, a tribe of rival Oms who inhabit another section of the park. The tribes are united, however, against the Dragg threat, which comes in the form of a deOminisation. The Om’s are gassed by cannon like robots in a genocide which is as evocative as it is matter of fact.  

Despite this, we are not led to see the Om’s as total victims. Moments before the deOminisation the Om’s kill a hippogriff like creature which strays too close to their tree. The killing is reminiscent of cave paintings which depict a buffalo hunt. As the chief Dragg says ‘We were wrong to consider Oms as simple harmless animals. I fear we have committed an error fraught with the most grievous consequences.’

Turns out they have, and the Oms fight long and hard enough to set up their own civilisation on a planet in space ‘where they now exist in vast cities.’ The call this planet Terre, as homage to their leader. This gives the mythology of the film a circular sense. Perhaps we are sitting here blissfully unaware of the next Draag invasion.

This epic action is set against a haunting techno score by pianist Alain Goraguer. The music, unfortunately, may remind you of Pizza Express style background tinkles. It would, however, be the most cinematic pizza of your life.  The music makes the film surreal as opposed to just plain weird.

 This is a film that will stay with the Creatures… audience a long time. I, for one, will be practicing my armless T-Rex fighting and watching the skies for signs of the Draggs. All we can do is remain vigilant. 

Creatures of the Night: Altered States Review

A walk through certain sections of Leeds city centre on Saturday night, I’m sure you’ll agree, is scary enough. The punters, lovely in the week no doubt, turn feral. As a student myself, I usually enjoy aping with the best of them. However, attempting to bust out of being a creature of habit, I turned away from town last Saturday. Instead of partaking in animal antics I went to watch Altered States instead.

Altered States is part of the Hyde Park Picture House’s Creatures of the Night festival, which sees late night movie screenings of cult classics, forgotten masterpieces, oddball documentaries and the best worst films ever made. 

Last weekend’s film was a science fiction horror directed by Ken Russell, which sees Harvard scientist Eddie Jessup (William Hurt) submitting himself to psychological tests and drug use in an attempt to define man’s true role in the universe. As a result of his endeavours he is devolved into a missing link figure, and runs amok, Saturday night Leeds style, through the streets of Boston.  His wife Emily (Blair Brown) stages a physical intervention and by the end of the film Eddie starts to value those things that make him human.

Undeniably, this film has character. The special effects have a hallucinogenic quality as you’d expect from a 80s sci-fi. Guest appearances from inquisitive rhinos and miffed elephants were greeted with laughter in the auditorium, and the film met with applause when the lights came on.  

The film is made more charming by the lack of care Russell takes with those things that just don’t matter. Bizarre plot twists are met as matter of fact, making the film wonderfully facetious.  Dialogue from the herd of scientists is often jargon based, - ‘I want to get a look at those E.E.G trexics’ - and even overlapping, meaning that it takes a back seat. 

In many ways the protagonist, Eddie, personifies the qualities of the film. The narrative opens with him floating in a tank, garbed in what can only be compared to an astronauts get up, ordering fellow scientist and minion Arthur Rosenburg (Bob Balaban) to get him out. Rosenburg is one of the most likable characters in the film, a constant stooge; he is always there to sweep up the pieces after Eddie’s Mr. Hyde like rampages.

 

Russell’s representation of Eddie’s psychedelic trips has to be seen to be believed. Safe to say the montage-cocktail of geometric shapes, Jesus, fiery fluids, goat man sex and lady lizards still has the ability to raise an eyebrow, even in these liberated times 30 years on from the movie’s release.

Eddie with Ram's head as Jesus.

The mad foray into Eddie’s subconscious is countered by the sketchy details of the external Eddie. Major life events, marriage, kids, divorce, are leapfrogged in a single camera shot. The tongue in cheek nature of the difference between his mind and reality sometimes makes for dull viewing; this is certainly a film of highs and lows.

One of these lows is the representation of Emily, Eddie’s wife. The audience meets her as she chomps suggestively on a carrot. In addition to this as she is ‘sweating out her dissertation’ on anthropology. Unfortunately it is the carrot chomping Emily that takes priority. She has ‘gut feelings’ contrasting to the terrifying rationality of the male scientists, and this does enforce a gender stereotype.

This has not impacted upon the films cult status, which would make an exciting movie itself, the production process was fraught with difficulty, including a transfer from Columbia to Warner’s as the budget his $15 million. The script is based on Paddy Chayefsky’s novel. Chayefksy disliked the story so much that he disowned it, and the film is now credited to his pseudonym, Sidney Aaron.

Eddie in psychedelia. (He hasn't just forgotten his keys,) 

Another reason the film has achieved cult status was the fleeting appearance of Drew Barrymore in her debut role as Eddie’s daughter.

This is a film that deserves its cult status, a film that never quite made it; coming runner up at the Oscars to Lucas’s The Empire Strikes Back in the sound category. The film is suitable material for Creatures of the Night. At times tacky, at times brilliant, this is one of the best worst films ever made.

Next week sees the Pink Flamingos coming to the Picture House, a journey into drug dealing, journalist chasing, furniture licking and of course, pink flamingos.  

You can watch the first section of the film (from youtube) here. 

Chapter 2: Mollie Remembers Whilst Teal Misses

The ground runs away from Mollie as they both descend. Always down. Her torch throws demons, terrifying monsters and lurking ape men around the walls. All imaginary. Mollie takes comfort from her string, which she spools out behind her as she walks. Indeed she is starting to almost enjoy herself. She has a processing mind. More than most people.  A mind that, right now, remembers and recounts all that she knows of the sewers.

Built 600 years ago by the original inhabitants of Agapanthus, the sewers, as they were still called, had been designed to carry the city’s waste away. After the recycling boom of the late 2030s most waste had been transported to the agricultural sectors. There had been a plan to turn the sewers into a city wide museum, and some parts had been expanded, great halls, antichambers, even grand stair cases, plunging towards the earth’s core. The project, always ambitious, had gone into bankruptcy and the plan had been abandoned. The head of Lilium and Lilium, the architect firm behind the endeavour, ended her days walking from function to function, begging for money to complete her project. Eventually she grew so disillusioned, so legend has it, that she walked into the sewers and never returned. There was little remorse over her death. She had been a very unpleasant woman.

Since then the sewers had been used for all sorts. Entire families used to hide in the depths during the Blitz years. Despite the destruction meters above, the tunnels would have been full of light then. Defiant laughter as well as the tears. The ghosts of the jaunty fiddle players, employed by the mayor of Agapanthus to keep peoples spirits up, were meant to haunt these places. Mollie smiles at the thought of the ghosts. A lot of superstitious fuss by people who refuse to question their own beliefs.   

When the war was reported finished, and troops, battered, tired, but safe were homeward bound the parties continued in the subterranean tunnels.  Great parties, huge grand parties, lit by electric lanterns. Mollie had a photo of the dancers, an antique piece, smiles never fading through the centuries. The photo, Mollie thought, encompassed it all, ball-gowns, Cha Chas, gin in teapots. However this golden age was short lived. As every generation grew up and went about their business visits to the city sewers declined.  

Then the revolution of 23^rd century. A new dawn had meant that people wanted a new way of living. The sewers had become the fortress of the revolution. A base for the guerrilla army to launch attacks upon those living on the surface. They would strike at night. The city’s other inhabitants, either supporters of the ruling party, or those just too dumb and scared to follow the guerrillas would wake every morning to walls of graffiti and burnt governmental buildings. The carnage was always surrounded by dead or dying security guards and revolutionaries. Every few days there would be news of more assassinations. Promising civil servants with bullets in their backs, pompous officials would go to sleep one evening and never awake. The autopsies always concluded that the result of death was the same. Poison.

That had been a dark time for the city. A violent time. Eventually the ruling classes had responded in kind. The mayor at the time, a Lord Scabiosa, had given the order one Thursday afternoon. By Friday morning there were work teams throughout the city, and by evening all manholes, tunnels, cracks, and service points had been concreted over. That had been the end of the revolution. Months later, teams went into the mines, looking for any survivors. What they found down there had been, by their account, horrific. The revolutionaries, always a violent bunch, had taken to eating each other. Corpses were exhibited, complete with bite and scratch marks. As there were no surviving revolutionaries the team’s account could not be verified. However the evidence was there. Since then there had been no more revolutions.

After the massacre the sewers had been abandoned. Indeed, by most members of the city they had been forgotten. The concrete designed to kill the revolutionaries had crumbled. There had been movements over the years to replenish and rejuvenate the subterranean vaults, but with Agapanthus itself crumbling the successive line of mayors decided to concentrate upon the world that saw light. Now the sewers played host to the occasional tramp looking for a dry place to sleep. Even that was infrequent.

And so Mollie remembers. As she walks she journeys through a thousand untold stories. These stories linger in the air, so pregnant with loss and memory that they become almost tactile. Little does Mollie know, but her story, unravelling like her ball of string, is set to be the greatest, and the most memorable of them all.

Like Mollie, Teal has an inquisitive mind. Often he spends his Sundays at the City Library, reading theology, literature, periodicals. But now he is on a mission. He thinks about what lies in front. Not behind. Like Mollie Teal wades through stories. He comes to a chamber. Walls and ceiling stretching away into the gloom. The roof is so high, or rather the floor so low, that the light from his torch cannot pierce against any solid object. Rather it hangs in the darkness, suspended.

Pausing to consult his map Teal is struck by how inaccurate it is. Instead of walking through the middle of the chamber he skirts around the edge, his chalk grating against the rough granite wall. He comes to a hole, a wide hole that used to hold a door. There is nowhere for Teal to chalk. Holding his breath, he scuttles across the entrance, regaining the far wall with a sigh of relief.

For the first time the scale of his undertaking hits him. The darkness stretches on for miles. Miles of empty rooms, halls and chambers, so criss-crossed with tunnels, passageways and gaping holes that it is incomprehensible. The eyes that watch Teal are suspended high above on the roof of the cavernous hall. For a second an arm, huge and tangled in thick, wet hair enters the torch’s pool of light. But Teal, with his eyes firmly located on where he is going, misses it. 

Sam Reeves