2023-11-22 18:12:31
Mars Express ***
by Jérémie Périn
French animated film, 1h25
A French feature film which combines animation and science fiction, it is rare enough to deserve a detour in theaters. Fifty years later The Wild Planetby René Laloux, that the Crossroads of animated cinema screened this Sunday, November 26 (1), we cannot say that this masterpiece of the genre has attracted many followers, despite its unexpected success in 1973 (800,000 admissions).
The departure for Mars Express is even more exciting. However, in 2200, life on Earth is not good, for men, but perhaps even more so for androids. On an overpopulated and bloodless planet, they are designated as responsible for all misfortunes. You have to go to Mars, to the luxurious colony of Noctis, to find happy cohabitation.
A metropolis under a bell tower, the city is green and urban. But as is often the case, like the utopian cities of the future, Noctis is built on an underground network where the first human base was installed. It is in these underworld that a dark affair is being hatched targeting a cybernetics student, who has mysteriously disappeared.
Tempo sometimes contemplative, sometimes electric
A private detective, Aline Ruby, goes looking for him, accompanied by her android, Carlos Rivera, inhabited by the memories of a police officer who has been dead for five years. Two beautiful antiheroes, one, deadpan and disillusioned, the other, full of humanity but uncomfortable in his metal skin, who give all the more flesh to the film as they are interpreted by excellent actors, Léa Drucker and Daniel Njo Lobé.
The gallery of secondary characters, endearing or disturbing, also contributes to giving depth to this dark film of anticipation well directed by the talented Jérémie Périn. Distinguished director of the first season of Cargo manan animated series for adults, here he deploys an ample staging with a tempo that is sometimes contemplative, sometimes electric, which compensates for the imperfections of a slightly convoluted scenario.
Tinted with a welcome humor that clears the darkness of the thriller, Mars Express rises to the level of the best live action science fiction films, developing a reflection on the place of robots in the world of tomorrow, against a backdrop of machine revolt.
#Mars #Express #film #noir #red #planet