Renaissance

Synopsis: When a young woman, Ilona Tasuiev, is kidnapped, Detective Barthélémy Karas is put on the case. What follows is a conspiracy and a mystery that could change life on Earth permanently.

The French have always amongst those at the forefront of visualising the future. Blade Runner, still probably the best vision of the future put to film, borrowed heavily from the Moebius comic The Airtight Garage, as well as other works. Now, finally, they get to show off in a way that not even The Fifth Element managed to do.

Renaissance is a computer-animated film unlike any before it. With a palette deliberately limited to black or white (no greys), director Christian Volckman and his animation team have produced what is one of the most visually-striking films of recent times. Not even the super-stylish Sin City can touch this for sheer bravura technical performance. The effect of seeing everything in only black or white creates a world in which the ambiguities of the traditional cyberpunk noir detective thriller are broken down into sharp relief.

The story is lightweight, but sufficient for the exercise in style that is the main game of this film. It’s a basic kidnap plot that owes as much to Japanese anime as it does to William Gibson et al, and while it’s far from an original story, it serves well enough. A missing girl, a conspiracy concerning a failed medical experiment in degenerative diseases, a pharmaceutical company with a private police force interfering in the investigation, and the missing girl’s sister falling for the hardboiled gruff-yet-sensitive detective are typical plot elements. Karas, seems powerless to stop the evil multi-national and their own private police force but naturally he’s not going to give up, even if it means taking beating after beating. It’s all by-numbers stuff, but still it’s fun and cool, in the main, because the visuals constantly excite the eyes.

The motion-capture technology used to transfer the live actors movements into data to animate their computer-generated avatars is interesting. It’s been used before, probably most famously for animating Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but here it’s not always smooth. Sometimes the character movements are stodgy and unnatural, mostly in quieter scenes. Whilst the action scenes are impressively choreographed and exciting, those awkward moments constitute a flaw that distracts from an otherwise enveloping sense of alternate reality.

The film has been dubbed into English, with Daniel Craig and Jonathon Pryce lending their vocal talents without ever sounding too much like they’re reading from an autocue. It’s a good dub, which is a relief, but even if it wasn’t you could still forgive it. The plot and dialogue are not the point and you don’t want to be wasting time reading subtitles when you should be looking at a work of visual art. Renaissance is definitely a turning point of sorts in cinematic artistry. It’s not for everyone, but lovers of technical and artistic innovation in film visuals should consider it a must.

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