Fantastic Planet (1973)

I do love some animation. I grew up in the 80's happily sucking at the warm, milky tit of child friendly cartoons from Warner Bros, Disney, Walter Lantz and Hanna Barbera. They were happy, giddy times but I also fed with curiosity on the charcoal flavoured nipple of Ralph Bakshi. His freaked out, anti-Nazi, rotoscoped feature Wizards (1977) has been sourced as a potential responsible party for a recurring nightmare I sweated through as a sprog (my actual birth is also another possible aggressor).

It's with mixed results I think how I would have responded to Fantastic Planet back then. Surely I would have woken up lying in a puddle of piss, muttering gibberish about escaping from my over possessive master Draag. It is a good story though; the Draags are the master race and the humans, known as Ohms, are pest-like creatures kept as pets and exterminated when their numbers swell. Themes of race relations, war and astral projection among others can be soaked up by the viewer in this textured soup. Plenty of other weird shit goes on of course but lets move on shall we? This surreal adventure features some great art that has been animated in quite a stilted manner. There is a nostalgic element that I really enjoyed about that fact but there is also something oddly creepy about it. The main theme music perfectly accompanies the sight of blue aliens meditating and making love to creatures from other dimensions (truly). Roland Topor who I have mentioned in a previous post worked on this as a writer and in the art department. He collaborated with director René Laloux on other projects and his influence was obviously quite strong. 

If everything I have written above makes watching this sound like a good idea then I suggest slating in some time for it...otherwise you will probably hate it and wake up in a puddle of warm piss. 
2.5/5