Arthouse Alert: Surreal Cartoon "Fantastic Planet" Screened with New Score in Chicago Thursday (5/5)

The classic from 1973 loses the dull dialogue for some atmospheric drone.

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Complex Original

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In America, we received the 1973 French/Czech animated film La Planète Sauvage as Fantastic Planet, but a literal translation might've been a more appropriate title. Depicting a surreal, Hieronymus Bosch-influenced place populated by super-tall blue humanoids that have enslaved tiny human beings, Fantastic Planet is a weird, grotesque, and beautiful cartoon.

When the film screens Thursday in Chicago it will be presented without the head-smackingly obvious dialogue and jazz soundtrack so that post-rockers Del Ray can create a suitably spacey live soundtrack. Normally we don't support altering a film (we've never recovered from the infamous moves of Ted Turner), but this sounds genuinely interesting. And there's always the knowledge that you can go back and experience all that awful dialogue with the DVD if Del Ray doesn't satisfy you.

[via Flavorpill]

Fantastic Planet (1973)
with live accompaniment from Del Ray
Thursday, May 5
9 p.m.
Lincoln Hall
2424 N Lincoln Ave
Tickets $12

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