Enki Bilal

  • Tykho Moon (1996)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2022) I did not like Tykho Moon – it’s dull, ugly, surprisingly conventional in plot elements and utterly inept in terms of science fiction ideas. On the other hand, it’s a fascinating film that illustrates how much of a gulf there can be between concepts and execution. If I tell you that it’s a sombre espionage/succession tale set on the Moon in a dictatorial future, you’re probably imagining the high-tech immersion required to portray such a tale – the fancy special effects, the details to show a lived-in future, possibly a few sequences at one-sixth Earth’s gravity. But Tykho Moon laughs at your presumptions. It shoots the entire film in grimy industrial settings somewhere in the Parisian suburbs, makes no effort to visualize its otherworldly nature (except for a single unimpressive special-effects shot toward the end) and ignores just about anything to do with the realities of what a lunar settlement would look like. Other than a few clichés about future disease, it also works on an incredibly pedestrian level when it comes to plotting, with depressingly trite plot mechanics and not much in terms of satisfaction. Like the incomparably superior Alphaville, it voluntarily uses its low budget as an excuse to dissociate what we see from what we expect to see in a science-fiction tale. It becomes a surreal exercise in detachment, exploring matters of form versus presentation. I certainly didn’t like it (and I like it less and less the longer I go on writing this review) but it makes for an unusual object lesson in opposing the content of Science Fiction versus its presentation. The lesson would be far more eloquent if it had some substance on the plotting side and a more deliberate approach on the presentation side (rather than fill a room with trash and calling it a day), but Tykho Moon is all about disappointment anyway.

  • Immortel (ad vitam) (2004)

    Immortel (ad vitam) (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, August 2010) I’m usually the first one to complain when a film’s visuals take over its story, but I can sure make an exception when it comes to Immortel (ad vitam), an eye-popping French Science-Fiction movie that teases as much as it satisfies.  The first few sequences sets the tone, with Egyptian gods discussing philosophy in a pyramid hanging over 2095 New York.  A blue-haired woman, an escaped cryogenic prisoner and a bizarre mixture of mutants and aliens quickly follow, setting up a visually dense film that nonetheless manages to tell a story in-between divine possession, political intrigue, dystopian exploitation and a dash of eroticism.  But never mind the adequate story, since the plentiful visual effects thoroughly dominate Immortel.  The film, largely shot against green screen, incorporates digital sets with CGI characters and real-life human actors.  The effect is strange and wonderful even when the quality of the animation doesn’t quite reach beyond the uncanny valley.  The number of quirky background inventions is impressive, and they’re thankfully not all explained as soon as they are introduced: as a result, Immortel feels more alive than countless other SF films.  The quirky dialogue isn’t without its charms either, most of the highlights taking place in conversation between the human hero of the story and his possessor Horus.  In the end, it’s this delightfully weird sensibility, adapted by co-writer/director Enki Bilal from his own graphic novels, which makes the film work even when it shouldn’t: if nothing else, it’s another eloquent proof that French SF cinema tends to be quite a bit more visually adventurous than its US counterparts.  Any serious media-SF fan should make an effort to track down this one.