I have been a big fan of French cinema ever since that fateful day back in Norwich, as a student, sitting down and watching whatever the heck was on TV at 6am. They were showing La Gloire de mon père (My Father’s Glory) and Le Château de ma mère (My Mother’s Castle) — Yves Robert’s adaptations of Marcel Pagnol’s childhood memoirs — and I was captivated by the visuals, the music, and the general joie de vivre of Pagnol’s summers in Provence. Despite not understanding a single word of French, the subtitles — thankfully well written — made sense of the plot. And from that moment forth I have enjoyed French cinema a great deal (Claude Berri’s Pagnol adaptations Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources are among my all-time favourite movies, as are the likes of Amélie, Micmacs, Delicatessen, The Illusionist and The Triplets of Belleville).
French animation I’ve been a fan of for even longer. When I was little, one of my first VHS tapes was The Twelve Tasks of Asterix, made at Studios Idéfix — the animation studio Goscinny and Uderzo set up to bring their own characters to the screen. The Asterix and Obelix stories were wonderful: the sense of humour, the crazy plotlines, and it was just so much fun. Later on, I became a fan of Sylvain Chomet’s The Triplets of Belleville and The Illusionist (adapted from a screenplay Jacques Tati never got to produce — and it made me want to visit Edinburgh so badly, which I did, and I fell in love with the place a few years later; I could now understand why my sister loves Scotland so much).
Anyway, all this — going via Japan — culminates in watching Studio Ghibli movies late at night as a teenager, when Channel 4 started to air the likes of My Neighbour Totoro. While I haven’t exactly been the biggest fan of anime, I have always appreciated the output from Ghibli (Miyazaki and Takahata) and its spin-off studios (Studio Ponoc, who produced Mary and the Witch’s Flower), and I lap them up whenever a new film comes along.
And that brings us to Arco, an independent French animated film that has won more awards than I’ve had hot dinners. And rightly so. It’s a sci-fi story set in the distant future, where humanity lives above the clouds on raised platforms and time travel is a common occurrence. Young Arco greets his family as they return from a time-travelling trip. He is desperate to go with them — he wants to see the dinosaurs — but time travel is restricted to over-12s only. So, while the family sleeps, he steals his sister’s cloak and the crystal required for time travel, and jumps off the side of his family’s platform.
Meanwhile, ten-year-old Iris lives far out in the country, left with the family robot, Mikki (in the English dub, Mikki’s voice is a blend of Natalie Portman and Mark Ruffalo), and her baby brother, Peter. Her parents are away working in the city during the week (and many weekends), so most evenings are spent with holograms of her parents while Mikki cooks, cleans and looks after baby Peter.
One day, after excusing herself from class, Iris is sitting outside doodling when she spots a rainbow suddenly streaming across the sky, followed by a bright spark. She follows the direction of the rainbow and hears a boy screaming as he falls to earth, landing in some woods. Iris rushes to his side and notices his weird rainbow outfit. Meanwhile, three brothers with different, brightly coloured outfits, bad bowl haircuts and far-out triangular rainbow glasses are in the woods investigating the crash.
And thus the adventure begins.
It is an exceptional film. Hugely positive, despite a future in which the environment is our greatest threat, and the relationship between Iris and Arco is simply beautiful. Having found somebody she can really connect to — and somebody who is interesting to her (Arco has special gifts, which I won’t spoil here) — she forms a tight bond that remains throughout the film. Yet Mikki the robot will leave an indelible imprint too, and the ending will absolutely destroy you if you have any heart.
The ending itself is brilliant. I’ll only say that in film, it’s best to show, not tell. And thanks to the fantastic Ghibli-esque artwork, no dialogue is needed. The soundtrack works alongside the beautiful animation to do the heavy lifting.
This is one of the finest works of animation I’ve seen in a while. A very solid 10/10.