Cinedelica: DVD Review: Les Maîtres du temps (1982)

Mdt The second of René Laloux’s widely-spaced sci-fi trilogy, Les Maîtres du temps is the weakest of the three, having neither the trippiness and allegorical smarts of The Fantastic Planet (1973) nor the visual inventiveness of Gandahar (1988). Nonetheless, as a children’s film (the other two have distinctly adult themes and imagery) it shows an admirable moral probity and has a serviceable if rather pedestrian story.

The cold open sees an imperilled spaceship crash-land on the remote and inhospitable planet Perdide. The occupants are a father and his young son. The father, Claude, sends an emergency distress call and gives his son Piel an interstellar communicator before dying of injuries sustained in the crash.

Claude’s friend Jaffar receives the distress call and heads for Perdide to rescue Piel. Meanwhile he and his passengers, a materialistic Prince and a sensitive Princess, talk Piel through the dangers he encounters on the surface of the planet. On their way they pick up Silbad, an old space cove who knows Perdide well, and two telepathic gnomes who serve as the film’s Greek chorus, illuminating (sometimes a little unnecessarily) the metaphorical elements of its events.

Of Perdide’s inhabitants the endearing wah-wah beast and a gallery of chilling blank-faced angels besotted with sameness are the most noteworthy. The film ends with a reasonably satisfying dénouement which wheels in a time paradox to tie up loose ends (as does Gandahar), but visually and creatively it lags behind Laloux’s other features.

Moebius (aka Jean Giraud)’s conceptual drawings may have been rich and innovative, but the finished animation seems rather bland and lacking in detail. There are fewer non-humanoid characters here than elsewhere in Laloux’s catalogue, and the film suffers creatively as a result. It demands effort to get caught up in Les Maîtres du temps, to suspend disbelief in the work as fantastical narrative and not an assemblage of cels, tweens, composites and pre-synchs – a fairly deep flaw for escapist spectacle.

Matters aren’t helped by the inclusion of several (mercifully short) musical interludes, Silbad belting out a ribald space shanty and the Princess singing Piel a smarmy lullaby. Interesting that the soundtrack of the older Fantastic Planet, unapologetic funk that would not sound out of place in porn of the era, is much more pleasant on the modern ear.

As mentioned, though the film is the weak link in Laloux’s animated oeuvre, the purity of its story and the wholesome morality of the two telepathic gnomes (they perceive human greed and malevolence as bad smells, and are baffled by that race’s keenness to have treasure but to keep it locked away where its beauty can do no good) make it healthy viewing for any children willing to sit still for eighty minutes.

(As usual, Eureka’s new transfer is technically superb.)

Sam Healy

DVD Review: Les Maîtres du temps (1982)

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