I might have to skip Venus vs. Serena, chapter 20: René Laloux’s Fantastic Planet is screening at SFMOMA tonight. Escape the first Thursday art stampede for privacy, darkness, and a playful scary dream.
One major reason I’m looking forward to seeing this movie is its soundtrack, by Alain Goraguer. I got a reissued vinyl edition (on the Pathe Marconi label) recently, and it is equally attractive and spooky. Goraguer worked with Serge Gainsbourg, and in some ways his La Planete Sauvage score reminds me of Gainsbourg’s soundtrack work with Jean-Claude Vannier. Without a doubt, Air has stolen plenty from Goraguer’s sinister yet sleek orchestration and his (and Gainsbourg’s, and Ennio Morricone’s, and Pino Donaggio’s…) use of sighing female vocals. The blog Electric To Me Turn — which gets love for taking its name from a Bruce Haack song — notes some of those corollaries, to which I’d add a resemblance to some David Axelrod sounds as well as the score for Shaft.
I’ve never seen anything more than clips of Fantastic Planet. But the movie is crammed with art references, is a big influence on early Hayao Miyazaki, and its surreal take on societal oppression and rebellion (inspired by the ’60s Soviet invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia) is more than applicable to the US, even if we’re in woozy morning-after status. Here’s a great trailer (love the voice-over, blue diamond effects, and the way critic Judith Crist’s last name is misspelled):