Blu-ray, DVD Release: Fantastic Planet

By
Laurence
– March 21, 2016Find Others: Blu-ray, DVD, Movie, New Release, NewsGet More: , , , ,

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: June 21, 2016
Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion

French filmmaker René Laloux’s 1973 animated marvel Fantastic Planet is a politically minded and visually inventive work of science fiction.

FantasticPlanet1_optThe film is set on a distant planet called Ygam, where enslaved humans (Oms) are the playthings of giant blue natives (Draags). After Terr, kept as a pet since infancy, escapes from his gigantic child captor, he is swept up by a band of radical fellow Oms who are resisting the Draags’ oppression and violence.

With its eerie, coolly surreal cutout animation by cult artiste Roland Topor (The Tenant), trippy psychedelic jazz score by Alain Goraguer, and wondrous creatures and landscapes, this Cannes-awarded 1973 counterculture favorite remains a compelling statement against conformity and violence.

Criterion’s Blu-ray and DVD editions of the film include the following:

  • New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • Alternate English-language soundtrack
  • Les escargots(1966), an early short film by director René Laloux and illustrator Roland Topor
  • Laloux sauvage,a 2009 documentary on Laloux
  • Italiques: Roland Topor Special,a 1974 French television program on Topor’s work
  • Archival interviews
  • Trailer
  • New English subtitle translation
  • An essay by critic Michael Brooke
Buy or Rent Fantastic Planet
Amazon graphicDVD | Blu-ray Movies Unlimited graphic Netflix graphic

Related titles:

  1. New Release: Cronos Blu-ray and DVD
  2. Blu-ray, DVD Release: Tales of the Night
  3. Blu-ray, DVD Release: Eraserhead
  4. Blu-ray, DVD Release: Valerie and Her Week of Wonders
  5. Blu-ray, DVD Release: Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams

About Laurence

Founder and editor Laurence Lerman saw Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest when he was 13 years old and that’s all it took. He has been writing about film and video for more than a quarter of a century for magazines, anthologies, websites and most recently, Video Business magazine, where he served as the Reviews Editor for 15 years.