Fantastic Planet is a 1973 animated science fiction film directed by René Laloux, production designed by Roland Topor, written by both of them and animated at Jiří Trnka Studio. The film was an international production between France and Czechoslovakia and was distributed in the United States by Roger Corman. The story is based on the novel ‘Oms en série,’ by the French writer Stefan Wul. The film is chiefly noted for Topor’s surreal imagery.
The film depicts a future in which human beings, known as ‘Oms’ (a play on the French word ‘hommes,’ meaning ‘men’), have been brought by the giant Draags to the Draag home world, where they are kept as pets (with collars). Most Oms are domesticated as pets, but others run wild, and are periodically exterminated. The Draags’ treatment of the Oms is ironically contrasted with their high level of technological and spiritual development. The Draag practice of meditation, whereby they commune psychically with each other and with different species, is shown in transformations of their shape and color.
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