The main protagonists are : a) a falcon-faced Egyptian deity condemned by his peers and strolling the Earth in order to find a solution b) a grown-up woman with paper-white skin and blue hair, who seems to have been born/made somewhere during the last months and c) a political dissident frozen and confined in a geostationary prison who accidentally regains his freedom, but at the cost of a leg. These characters evolve against the background of a seriously dystopic New York where humans (real, genetically modified and/or patched up), extraterrestrials and mutants meet and mingle, under the baleful eye of a floating pyramid.
As you can guess, "Immortel" belongs to the science fiction/fantasy genre, being based on a famous trilogy drawn by graphic artist Enki Bilal. (I'm sorry to say I've never read these novels, I only know that they exist and that they are famed for their beauty and originality.) Now this is movie of great, towering qualities and great, seriously annoying defects.
To begin with the good, the movie contains images of superb power and beauty, just as it evokes a weird, discombobulating, alien atmosphere. The French word is "onirique"... This is a movie like a dream, a nightmare, a fever vision. The aesthetics are original and far, far removed from anything mainstream and Hollywood.
Sadly the quality of the animation, especially the CGI animation, is very uneven : parts of it are so beautiful they make you cry out with admiration, parts of it look as though they were made by your thirteen-year-old nephew, possibly during his lunch break at school. The world inhabited by the characters remains a riddle and a puzzle ; much is left unexplored, such as the political and societal dynamics. As a result a lot of the satirical barbs or political points miss their respective targets entirely. Finally there is the dialogue, which is as flat and boring and unappealing as a five-day-old pancake. I don't know which circumstances caused the problem (translation issues ? dubbing ? a thoughtless duplication of the dialogue written in the graphic novels ?) but the problem is here and it is huge.
In conclusion I'd say : do watch the movie, especially if you like European science fiction, but be sure to bring along your good will and your patience...
As you can guess, "Immortel" belongs to the science fiction/fantasy genre, being based on a famous trilogy drawn by graphic artist Enki Bilal. (I'm sorry to say I've never read these novels, I only know that they exist and that they are famed for their beauty and originality.) Now this is movie of great, towering qualities and great, seriously annoying defects.
To begin with the good, the movie contains images of superb power and beauty, just as it evokes a weird, discombobulating, alien atmosphere. The French word is "onirique"... This is a movie like a dream, a nightmare, a fever vision. The aesthetics are original and far, far removed from anything mainstream and Hollywood.
Sadly the quality of the animation, especially the CGI animation, is very uneven : parts of it are so beautiful they make you cry out with admiration, parts of it look as though they were made by your thirteen-year-old nephew, possibly during his lunch break at school. The world inhabited by the characters remains a riddle and a puzzle ; much is left unexplored, such as the political and societal dynamics. As a result a lot of the satirical barbs or political points miss their respective targets entirely. Finally there is the dialogue, which is as flat and boring and unappealing as a five-day-old pancake. I don't know which circumstances caused the problem (translation issues ? dubbing ? a thoughtless duplication of the dialogue written in the graphic novels ?) but the problem is here and it is huge.
In conclusion I'd say : do watch the movie, especially if you like European science fiction, but be sure to bring along your good will and your patience...