Gandahar

French animator Rene Laloux of "Fantastic Planet" renown, attempted to make another surreal sci-fi adventure with the 80's "Ghandar" or as Isac Asimov and Harvey Wienstien decided to call it for those of us in the states "Light Years", which since no... space travel takes place, and since the movie is about a fictional country called "Gandahar" is probably a bad title. "Light Years" I guess sounds more sci-fi-ish, and if this film was to succeed in the states(it didn't) it was gonna need every bit of conventionality it could muster.

The story is a complex one involving the standard sci-fi tropes of eugenics, time travel, death, and utopia, and though it's certainly more involved than most animated sci-fi (a good deal of the time were watching the characters talk), it's really the visualization of the world and it's inhabitants which makes this movie worth seeing.

Like "Fantastic Planet" before it, Laloux's environments are some of the most alien that have ever been imagined. The landscape is often undulating Daliesuqe deserts, which strange trees which resemble simultaneously bodily organs and geysers, a young girl offering her breast to a new born who looks like a tapir, born out of a grown embryonic plant, a city of underground mutants who resemble Blemmyes, ancient African monsters with heads beneath their shoulders, an army hollow soldiers who turn people into statues, video camera like birds who can lift entire buildings in swarms, and of course a colossal mile wide sentient brain in the middle of the ocean.

Laloux uses sci-fi story structures to create, very evocative images that do not look like anyone else's, ever, something few filmmakers in any medium or genre, can claim with straight face.

That being said the English voice acting is just decent, not great but decent, it keeps the story moving, but doesn't draw you into any of the characters. "Light Years" like "Fantastic Planet" or the animated films of Svankmajer are more concerned with form than content, but not oblivious of the latter.

So if you like heady sci-fi, visually stunning design, and unique animation, this is not to be passed up. If not it's probably not bad to see once anyway, just for the visual treat of it all, and the more I mull over the story, not the plot, I'm more impressed with how well and vividly it told me a story I've heard a hundred times before.

GANDAHAR is an imaginative little science fiction feature from Rene Laloux, who directed the acclaimed FANTASTIC PLANET. I haven't seen that one but I did enjoy this one; I saw the version showing on Prime which had been dubbed into English with the voices of Christopher Plummer, Glenn Close et al. Intriguingly, the animation (which I like a lot) was handled by a North Korean studio. The story gathers together many familiar themes from 20th century science fiction including time travel, eugenics and technology, weaving them into a satisfying story involving rebel characters battling against a merciless robot army. Put it this way, it has far more heart, soul and insight than any film in the STAR WARS franchise made since the original trilogy.

'Light Years' is a work of sci-fi animation that really stands apart from the pack. In order to enjoy this film, one must have an appreciation of science fiction altogether. For those individuals such as Leonard Maltin, whom dismissed this movie as a pretentious 'talky' cartoon, you must understand that 'Light Years' tells a very human story about irresponsible inventions and ignorance in a completely ALIEN setting; this is the true magic of the film! I thought the dialogue was creative and the story was fascinating. The creatures and characters are beyond description, and the ending will blow you away. True sci-fi fans I think should dismiss Leonard Maltin's review and rent this one!

about time and utopic realities. The animation is wonderful and detailed. Everything serves perfectly the telling of the story. And the hand of Asimov is not only in the novel, but also in the adaptation to the screen, so that is faithful to his representation of life. Worth watching a few times.

It's not an outstanding movie by any means, but it gets the job done and entertains. One has to remember that when viewing sci-fi often the plot takes precedence over character. Most plot driven films and stories are like that: We're given the bare bones of our protagonist, and watch him or her weave their way through a story.

Such it is with "Light Years." The animation is certainly above the quality of your typical commercial studio, but is not as dazzling as say a Japanese Anime space opera, nor a Disney Production feature; but it does have a certain quality unto itself. Even so the movie could've used more shots (cutaways and general coverage) to help move the story and highlight the characters more. As it stands more the shots are rather static, and the animation in them shifts gears a little too often. In some scene the animation is very smooth, where other times is seems very long and drawn out, or just not well staged.

The film itself has action, but some of the it is stilted and painfully slow, where other times it moves quite well. The dubbing is adequate, though, like all dubbed films, one gets the sense that it doesn't quite catch the tones and inflections of the voices from the original French cast.

Technology and regimented existence are pitted against the organic and under-dogs of Ghandahar in a typical sci-fi theme. The film's worth a night's rental, and if you like collecting rare sci-fi this might be one to add to your collection. Otherwise it may only be worth a single viewing.

*EDIT* French Region 2 DVD review, Jan 3, 2010

Well, I finally saw the original French film in all its entirety. As an American I have to say that I appreciate the additional footage, and can nod at the more subtle pacing, but I do have to say that I think the Americanized version has some pluses going for, namely in the music. The original French score underlines the basic theme of what is being presented. There are no heroics on the battlefield nor purely desperate moments as would be conveyed by the American musical score. The other subtleties are apparent, and I think I better understand why the American producers did what they did by sexing up what they could. The French film is more prosaic and "European" (for lack of a better term) in its presentation of a world in crisis. There's an emotional malaise characteristic of European cinema as a whole that comes across in the original French version. There's a subtle (and not so subtle) nihilistic quality here. Perhaps there's a bit of Nazi occupation still resonating within this film.

All I can really say is that it's a different film from the American version. I'm not sure I prefer one too much over the other. There's a lack of celebration in the French film. There's a kind of fatalistic quality to that is twisted but still present in the American version. Whereas the French version of this film emphasizes weathering the storm and completing the objective, the American version emphasizes confronting the challenge in a way that we Americans have always done. There's a lack of ambient depression that seems to hang and mildly envelope European art, film included. A kind of ethereal drawn out emotionalism that you'd never see in an American film, but is fairly strong in Russian and Swedish cinema, and hits French and Italian films in a less powerful vein.

I would be interested in seeing a DVD of the American version to make a more thought out and proper comparison. But I guess that'll have to wait.