July 13 - René Laloux

Happy Birthday, René Laloux! Born today in 1929, this French animator and film director, years later, went to art school to study painting. 

 
After some time working in advertising, Laloux got a job in a psychiatric institution where he began experimenting in animation with the interns. 

 
Among his credits, Laloux is best known for co-writing and directing the 1973 French animation/sci-fi drama/fantasy film 'La Planète Sauvage' ('Fantastic Planet', lit. 'The Wild Planet'). 

 
This was alongside French illustrator, cartoonist, comics artist, painter, novelist, playwright, film and television writer, filmmaker and actor Roland Topor. He was an important collaboration to Laloux. 

 
With cut-out animation (along with some strange creatures), it follows the relationship between the small human-like Oms and their much larger blue-skinned oppressors, the Draags, who rule the planet of Ygam.  

 
While the Draags have long kept Oms as illiterate pets, this hierarchy shifts after an Om boy becomes educated, thanks to a young female Draag.  

 
This leads to an Om rebellion, which weakens the Draag control over their race. Will the Oms and the Draags find a way to coexist? Or will they destroy each other? 

 
The film had been based off of French science fiction writer Pierre Pairault's 1957 French science fiction novel Oms en série (Fantastic Planet), under his nom de plume Stefan Wul. 

 
The film premiered In May 1973 at the 26th Cannes Film Festival, where it was awarded the Grand Prix special jury prize. 

 
The film's narrative has been considered to be an allegory about animal and human rights, as well as racism.  

 
Seattle film critic and writer Sean Axmaker of Turner Classic Movies referred to the film as "nothing if not allegorical". 

 
He wrote that "it's not a stretch to see the fight against oppression reflected in the civil rights struggle in America, the French in Algeria, Apartheid in South Africa, and (when injustice takes a turn to wholesale annihilation of the 'inferior' race) the Holocaust itself". 

 
Los Angeles-based American freelance arts and culture journalist Liz Ohanesian of LA Weekly speculated on the film being a commentary on animal rights, using the Draag's treatment of the Oms as evidence and writing that the film places "humans in roles of pets and pests".  

 
American film critic Mike D'Angelo of The A.V. Club wrote that "The Traag-Om dynamic is broad enough to be multipurpose, reflecting both racism and animal rights via 'How would you like it?' role reversal". 

 

In 2016, 'Fantastic Planet' was ranked the 36th Greatest Animated Movie ever by Rolling Stone.

 
Laloux had been active from 1960–1998. 

 
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