Extraordinary movie reveals extraordinary world

Movie Review: April and the Extraordinary World

By David Means

In the spring of this year, our family went to see the animated movie April and the Extraordinary World (2016) when it played a limited run at the Tivoli. Although several American actors were listed as voices, the version we saw was the original French (“Avril et le Monde Truqué”) with English subtitles. The film was based on a graphic novel by Jacque Tardi, who also acted as graphic designer, and his style definitely comes through. I certainly remember him from the pages of Heavy Metal in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

The movie is a steampunk/alternate history tale set mostly in and around Paris, and follows the fortunes of three generations of scientists. The first two generations are handled in two short vignettes, so they act more as prologues for the adventures of April, the third generation.

The first vignette opens in Paris in 1870. The Emperor, Napoleon III, and his bodyguard are paying a visit to a scientist’s lab. The scientist has been working on “the serum ultimate”, which is intended to render soldiers invincible. France is on the verge of war with Germany and the Emperor is desperate for an advantage. Unfortunately, the serum had a completely different and unexpected effect on the two test creatures. Enraged, the Emperor orders his bodyguard to destroy the lab. In the ensuing chaos the test creatures escape, and two liquids which should never mix, do, resulting in a large explosion. A few days later the new Emperor -- Napoleon IV -- signs a peace treaty with Germany, and the Franco-Prussian War never occurred. End of vignette one.

The second vignette takes place about forty years later. The late scientist’s daughter, Annette, is now married and has a daughter of her own: April, who appears to be about ten. Annette and her husband, Paul, are trying to continue the work of her father, but they must do so in hiding. The Empire wants all scientists to work for the military, but Paul and Annette do not want their research misused.

Complicating the situation is a mysterious entity that seeks out scientists of every discipline, and kidnaps them. All anyone sees is a small, dense, swirling black cloud swooping out of the sky, throwing off lightning bolts, which stun the scientist. The cloud envelopes the stunned body, then speeds away, and the scientist is never seen again. So anyone researching science must dodge both the Empire and the unknown force while they try to work.

The Empire has tracked down Annette and Paul, but they flee, taking April with them. Although they evade the police for a short time, the mysterious black cloud joins the chase, and their options soon run out. Paul’s father rescues April, but Annette and Paul are captured by the cloud. April and her grandfather escape and go into hiding. End of vignette two.

The story proper opens about twenty years later. With the disappearance of the world’s researchers, mankind has been deprived of their inventions. Without radio, electricity, aviation, and the internal combustion engine, the world is mired in outdated technology, dominated by steam power. Europe has been stripped of its forests to burn for fuel, and the European countries are eagerly eyeing the vast forests of Canada for more wood. (While watching I wondered why there was not more coal being used.)

April is now an adult and on her own. She survives by stealing what she needs, including science books. April has a secret hideout where she lives and attempts to carry on the family’s research. Her work is hampered due to the general lack of scientific and technological knowledge. Her only companion is her talking cat, Darwin, who was created by her parents to keep her company.

A mid-level gendarme of the Paris police -- who was involved in the attempt to arrest Paul and Annette years ago -- has spotted April, and has set a local pick-pocket to keep an eye on her, but not interfere with her thefts. The pick-pocket finally spies April’s hideout, and the ensuing attempt to arrest her sets off a chain of events that eventually leads to a reunion, a scientific breakthrough, and the explanation of the mysterious force that has been kidnapping scientists.

Our family liked the movie and would love to own our own copy, although it’s not your typical animated movie. I especially liked that there was a logical explanation for the steam-powered world. Marisa described the story as being ‘full’. She also felt the story went sort of Jonny Quest at one point, but said it did not detract from the movie overall.

There were at least two shout-outs to SF/F movies in April. One was a recreation of the ‘Moloch’ scene in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis; and the other was seeing a broken Dalek in a pile of scrap.

The only other movies I have seen that are both hand-drawn and deal with the conflict between technological progress and maintaining nature are Steamboy (2005) and Princess Mononoke (1999). Although I prefer the animation style of Steamboy,  I thought the story for April was deeper. Steamboy did not offer a real resolution to the dichotomy between nature and progress, and Princess Mononoke was full-tilt in favor of nature. April seemed to strike a balance between the two, although the epilogue (set in 1969) seemed to show a world remarkably similar to that of the 1969 that we knew.

The movie has a 98% positive score on Rotten Tomatoes from the critics, and the average audience rating is 80% positive. The movie is available on DVD as of August 2^nd, 2016, but you can also stream the movie on Apple iTunes, Google Play, YouTube, and Sony Entertainment.

IMAGES: Many thanks to Rotoscopers for the images in this post, and to Filmisnow Movie Trailers on YouTube, for the trailer.

Film Review: "The Wind Rises"

By David Sooby
Film review: The Wind Rises (2013; original title "Kaze tachinu"); an Anime biopic with fantasy elements.
My rating: 3-1/2 stars out of 4

How does Hayao Miyazaki, creator of such Anime fantasy masterpieces as Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Howl's Moving Castle, and Kiki's Delivery Service, go about creating an Anime biography of Jiro Horikoshi, a Japanese aircraft engineer who designed the  Mitsubishi Zero, probably the best fighter plane in the early part of WW II?

He does it by including dreams and daydreams showing the desires and inspirations of a young man working hard to become an inventor and engineer; dreams of flight which fit very well into Miyazaki's style of beautiful, richly detailed, fantastic visuals. 

Dreams of flight in The Wind Rises

But counterpoint to the dream sequences, the setting of this film is firmly grounded in historical reality. The auteur does not shy away from showing the economic turmoil and social chaos in pre-WW II Japan. As shown in the film, this was a period of rising militarism, when Japan spent massive amounts of its limited wealth on building up its military, even while Japanese citizens were being impoverished and displaced.

As depicted in this film, aircraft designers like Horikoshi  wanted only to make wonderful flying machines, not weapons of destruction. (This might be not far from the truth. According to Horikoshi's Wikipedia entry, his diary showed he was "strongly opposed to what he regarded as a futile war".)  It is the supreme irony of the film that these engineer-inventors were able to see their dreams realized -- produced and actually flown -- only because aircraft development was funded by the military. Miyazaki does not shy away from this irony, and in fact underscores it by making the simultaneous rise of militarism in Germany and Italy part of the story.

The engineer-inventors get to see their dreams become real--but only with military help.

A parallel story in the film is how Horikoshi met and romanced the love of his life. This plot also seems, fatalistically (and fatalism plays a very big part in Japanese storytelling), to be on a road to inevitable tragedy, for soon after he starts courting her he learns that she has tuberculosis.

The story is slow moving and filtered through a very romantic lens. Miyazaki has eschewed suspense and excitement in favor of, apparently, sticking close to actual historical events, despite the heavy dose of romanticism. Patience by the viewer will be richly rewarded in the many beautifully rendered scenes of Japanese landscape and architecture, as well as the sometimes literally fantastic flying sequences. 

Japanese landscapes and a love story fill out the story, but slow the pace.

Counterpoint to the romance, Miyazaki injects some elements of realism into the mix; Horikoshi's slide rule is depicted with exacting detail in many scenes, as are the drawings and aircraft blueprints produced by his aircraft company. The many hours Horikoshi spends on calculations provides a counterpoint to the fantastic dreams-of-flying sequences.

I'm a fan of animation, and I don't see Anime as a separate genre, but rather as just one style of animation. This is by far one of the most beautifully drawn animated films I've ever seen. I give it a small down-check for occasionally wanting the story to move a bit faster, but overall it's a wonderful film.

Fantastic flight sequences, as we soar with the inventor's imagination.

One mark of a great director is that, somewhere in the film, he will insert a line which sums up his vision of the film. In Lawrence of Arabia, this comes at the half-way point, when a motorcyclist shouts across the Suez Canal to Lawrence: "Who are you?" The voice of the motorcyclist is the voice of director David Lean.

In "The Wind Rises", one of Horikoshi's idols is the Italian aircraft designer Giovanni Caproni. In the young engineer's dreams, Caproni becomes his mentor. In the final scene of the film, the imagined Caproni says to Horikoshi: "Airplanes are beautiful cursed dreams, waiting for the sky to swallow them up." I'm not sure whether or not Miyazaki intended for that to sum up the entire film, but it certainly does serve as an insight into the director's thinking. 

IMAGES: Many thanks to Anime Monday, for the first and final still images in this post, to Madman, for the movie stills of the military planes and the couple in the woods, and to YouTube and Deadline Hollywood, for the official trailer. 
PLEASE NOTE: this review was originally posted on the Laser Rangers Facebook Page.