Renaissance

One reason Pixar has endured so well, and been so successful, is that while their films remain technical marvels and visual mosaics, they have a story to match their style. And often very moving style at that: affecting, charming and cross-generational. That a lot Anime (speaking in broad terms) and a great many other animations fail to match their technical virtuosity with real substance is, I think (and I might be wrong) partly because either the makers aren't bothered with character and plot and focus far too much on sound and image, or the sheer effort that goes into making some animations is so enormous, so enervating that they don't have the energy to create a really engaging story.

That same cannot be said of Renaissance. There are flaws in its plot, but I'll get to that later. Those same flaws, however, are not reflected in the visuals - Renaissance is nowt short of stunning. The ultra-high contrast images (sometimes so high-contrast that is nothing but one face or one beam of light visible) and incredible detail are always impressive, always a joy to behold. The futuristic Paris on display is the grim offspring of Blade Runner and Brave New World; dark, murky, quite affluent and even clean, but shrouded in intrigue, corporate malfeasance, obsessed with beauty (capital of the catwalk, after all) and disguising the squalor and neglect of its labyrinthine passages with a veneer of monumental, sophisticated architecture.

It's a compelling environment, not entirely original, but great all the same. The film's much-touted 'motion-capture' technology and incredible attention to human and design minutiae result in images a black-and-white photographer would die for. Not that the detail prevents entertainment, because Christian Volckman crafts some superb action sequences: a hell-for-leather care chase, a couple of gruesome(ly imaginative) murders, several tussles in the dark and a nasty dust-up in a gloomy apartment. The locations are great, too (I want to visit the nightclub). While the central character of Karas is your regular off-the-shelf maverick cop, the other two female characters (who are sisters) are the real motors of the movie. Coming from war-torn Eastern Europe, products of a war, diaspora and a family spat, they're a compelling metaphor for Europe as a whole.

The film is tremendously atmospheric, its dizzying, swooping faux-camera moves and adult tone making for a very engaging experience. However, the plot... It never becomes more interesting than the initial hook, in which indefatigable plod Karas must find Ilona Tasuiev, a drop-dead gorgeous and pioneering scientist, after she's snatched from the street. The sinister corporation Avalon (is ANY corporation ever not sinister?), which she was working for on 'classified', projects are hell-bent on her retrieval, and soon Karas is up to his neck in official reprimands, dead bodies, cigarette-smoke and narrowly-missed bullets, and falling in love with Ilona's sister Bislane (very sympathetically voiced by Catherine McCormack), as he plumbs the depths of the city's sordid underbelly (and his own past).

Text-book noir, in other words, but while I enjoyed the film a lot more than Sin City (to which it bears a passing visual resemblance), the plot and resolution are dull, the theme of immortality being raised but never examined, and the shenanigans of high-rolling Avalon CEO Paul Dellenbach are also dull , undercutting a lot of the dramatic tension. The basic ideas are familiar sci-fi genre materials, and there's a nagging sense that the visuals and atmosphere are disguising the mundane material.

However, the film as a whole is lucid and perfectly coherent, even if some of the scenarios the characters get into occasionally feel like excuses for displays of technical wizardry. But it's the projection of life in Paris circa 2054, the vision of community and creation of another city from the ground up that makes this film something to behold. I may be taking it too seriously, and if that's the case I can at least say that it's superbly made, extremely entertaining (and pretty mature, too), and with an ambiance like no other.

If you've ever seen the trailer for the film "The Recruit" with Colin Farrell and Al Pacino, you'll never have to see that film. Sadly, Renaissance has had similarly revelatory trailer makers.

The story of Renaissance is about a detective investigating the kidnapping of a young woman and medical researcher. The setting is a futuristic Paris, and science fiction elements feature throughout. The special thing about Renaissance, though, is its visual style, and not its story. Renaissance is 3D computer animation, like Final Fantasy, but highly stylised into black and white with ultra sharp contrasts. The result looks stunning (although the problems of 3D animation of human beings are still noticeable from time to tome: slightly robotic movements, slightly wooden facial acting, etc) As a highly stylised, beautiful film noir, Renaissance succeeds at stunning the audience, especially visually. The story and writing, though, are not quite at the same level of quality as the visuals. It's not a bad story (and presumably, if you haven't seen the trailer, it's a lot more exciting than it was for me). But it is a story that isn't highly original, and verges on the corny. A few lines of dialogue were painfully corny, making the writing sound like a beginner's first efforts.

I will definitely recommend Renaissance to friends. It's unlike anything I've seen before, visually, and I believe its originality alone makes it a worthwhile experience. It is also a watchable story, even if it isn't perfect.

Animation always seems to be fringe. In Japan, this might not be the case, but in Europe and much more so in the USA animation has a big fat "KIDS" tag on it. France is probably one of the more comic-liberal countries, home of classics as Tin-Tin, Asterix, Lucky Luke, Valereon and so on(if you've never read these, it's not too late. There's no upper-age limit on them and they don't carry the nerd-stigma of DC or Marvel) It seems natural a movie like this one pops up in France. It suits my prejudiced image of the French as art-loving, anti-USA-oriented and talented movie-makers. Luckily there's also "A scanner darkly" out there to suppress that view - seems art is pretty much international.

Anyway, as you might have gathered Renaissance is artsy and French. If you're a normal person you will get scared by this. There's no need for that however! Beneath it's cool, sleek cel-shaded appearance there's a good thriller and a good movie overall.

That was one of my fears for this movie. It's so easy turning the spectacular animation to a gimmick, much like Sony & C:o are doing with their Pixar rip-offs. I was expecting a confusing, sometimes boring and not very engaging movie, but luckily I was wrong.

I would have enjoyed it anyway for the neo-noir stuff, but it was good that it was worthwhile on that level as well. NOTE: I've seen the French dub which was OK as far as I could see. English might be more interesting what with Craig and everything.

A final word of praise to the animation. It was awesome. Futuristic, well-crafted, nice camera-work, smart solutions(Eyes for example looked very good, which is hard to do) and so visually stunning I felt like bursting out "This is so damn impressive!". Then again, I really like animation and I appreciate the effort the studio put down, so my verdict is a bit biased.

Good movie anyway, definitely lives beyond it's "gimmick".

Paris in 2042 and an employee of the health & beauty giant Avalon goes missing. Her employer wants her found urgently and the case is assigned to a jaded policed captain called Karas. Karas teams up with Bislane, the sister of the missing scientist and together they find connections between Avalon, buried research, underworld bosses and a discovery that Avalon is frantic to get its hands on.

Renaissance came to me with reviews that praised the style but noted that the story limited how good the film was as a final product. I tried not to watch it with this in mind but it was difficult because the collected wisdom is correct in this case and this is just how the film plays out. The plot is a slow starter mainly because the start is where the characters and depth is supposed to come in, with the "action" and reveals coming later. Unfortunately but perhaps unsurprisingly the film doesn't have this depth early on and it didn't really engage me, leaving the potentially complex plot to slightly confuse me while also failing to grab my attention. This changes as the film goes on and things become clearer and I did get more interested in the second half on the way to a solid ending for this type of thing.

Obviously the main selling point of the film is the animation and the visual style. In this regard the film is rather superficial until you get into it, then after a while it is cool and broody, full of shadow and atmosphere. Such a shame then that with all the cool visuals, we are given English cast that deliver such flat and dull performances by contrast. Craig is a distinctive voice of course but he seems to focus on this rather than working on his character. Holm is a bit better and appears to be putting a bit of effort into it but Pryce and others drift by without having a lot of material to work with. Always nice to hear Sosanya's tones but she has a tiny part.

Renaissance is very much the product of the approach that made it. Visually it is impressive with oodles of style but the story, although it gets better, is not as engaging as I was hoping for and the performances are surprisingly and disappointingly flat.

I've seen this film in avant-premiere at Imagina Festival in Monaco.

I saw the first trailer four years ago, and from this moment, I was waiting to see the final result. I haven't been disappointed.

It is a full 3d movie with a high contrasted black and white render. Clearly inspired by some comic books, such as the ones from F. Miller. In this optic, it goes one step further than the excellent "Sin City" adaptation from R. Rodriguez. This time, (almost) no Grey or any middle color, but a graphic style never seen before in a realistic animated film.(can't wait for scanner darkly)

The massive use of Motion Capture gives a lot of life and credibility to the characters and we forget really soon the technical aspect to concentrate on more classic elements, such as direction or plot. The direction stays sober and controlled despite the infinite possibilities of the medium, and that is a really good surprise.

The futuristic story (Paris 2053) makes it a classic sci-fiction movie and maintain the viewer interested till the end. Despite a classic base plot (an investigation that goes far beyond initial expectations)the atmosphere and some interesting recurring themes (genetics, absolute power of certain firms...)gives this movie a great interest.

Despite it is an animated film, this one is obviously not made for children. You won't find here any funny pet or any stupid family moral, only the cold reality. It is far closer to a good film noir.

I found that the setting is one of the best aspect of the film: we still feel the well known Paris, but it is morphed by a fine touch of futurism.

Nevertheless, I regret a few mistakes. The montage is sometimes a bit flat, one or two very cliché slow motion effects and some poor dialogs. Even though the technical is excellent, it shows its limits in some romantic sequences (a bit like "final fantasy" did). Those little things makes it a 7/10.

Altogether, it is a successful artistic challenge that you have to watch if you can. The director, Christian Volckman, knows how not to fall into potential traps (luckyly, they didn't ask John Woo to do the job!).

To conclude, it is a film with blasting visuals, an intelligent story and a wonderful art direction. Watch it if you can!

Please excuse me for the spelling mistakes.