Big And Small, Old And New

Over the weekend I saw two animated films dealing with little people living amongst big people.  First I saw The Secret World Of Arrietty, a charming feature from Studio Ghibli, released in English through Disney.  It's based on The Borrowers, the first in a series of children's novels about four-inch people who live underneath the floorboards in normal-sized people's houses.  I never read the books but had seen the 1997 live action movie so I was familiar with the story.

I assume one reason the books did so well is that children can identify with little people living amongst giants.  Actually, when I think of the story, what comes to me most was an episode of This American Life.  Writer Lawrence Wechsler read his daughter, Sarah, the Borrowers books and she believed they were real.  He started playing along with her beliefs, going so far as to answer her notes to them with notes of his own alleging to be from them.  He hoped it would blow over but eventually it blew up in his face.

Then at the Los Angeles Animation Festival, held around the corner from where I live, I saw Fantastic Planet (1973).  It's in French and the original title is La Planete Sauvage--interesting translation. It's about a world peopled with giant blue beings called Traags and little animals known as "Oms" that are pretty clearly humans. (The words sounds like "hommes" or men.) Traag children often take Oms for pets, but there are many more wild Oms living in in abandoned areas, and they're occasionally wiped out by the Traags.

The film is from that no man's land era, between the first and second golden age of Disney features, when the animation was fairly crude, though often beautiful.  In fact, there are a number of moments in Fantastic Planet when we just see a drawing of Oms--no movement.  The story is also somewhat surreal, even psychedelic, with weird landscapes and animals, not to mention the Traags spending large portions of their time meditating and leaving their body.

The messasge, as you might guess, is ultimately about how the two races learn to get along. First the Traags have to recognize that Oms, though small, are rational beings.  (It also helps when the Oms learn to get tough.)

Like Arrietty, I have a strong association with this film. I've been waiting to see it for a long, long time.  The first time I was going to see it I got into a big fight with someone and I missed the showing.  I don't know if the film is worth waiting decades to see, but it's definitely worth checking out.