Gandahar (1987)

On the bizarre world of Gandahar, automatons are sweeping the landscape and petrifying people.  They collect the statues and carry them away through a mysterious dimensional gate.  Ambisextra (Glenn Close), the leader of the Council of Women and mother of Sylvain (John Shea), dispatched her son to investigate the strange metal men.  During this odyssey, he met Airelle (Jennifer Grey), whom he rescued.  Then he encountered the deformed, a race of men who all have different deformities and often special powers; one of them spoke of a prophecy that would be fulfilled in a thousand years.  They show him the dimensional gate.  He sailed on the ocean and found what appeared to be a massive brain; this was Metamorphis (Christopher Plummer).  Like the deformed, Metamorphis claimed to be the result of Gandaharian scientists who unleashed powers they did not understand.  The brain freely told Sylvain that he would not be susceptible to the poison that Sylvain carried for a thousand years.  So, he put Sylvain into stasis.

A thousand years later, Sylvain awoke in a desolate Gandahar, but soon met one of the deformed.  Metamorphis was now decrepit and dying.  To stave off death, it had generated a gateway to the past through which it was importing Gandaharians to feed upon.  Sylvain administered the poison and fled with as many Gandaharians as he could back through the time portal, to his own time.  And the world is saved.  Huh?

The world of Gandahar doesn't make much sense.  Why does Ambisextra have wings on her head?  And what is with that name?  In a world where scientists are making giant brains and messing with DNA to create the deformed, why does Sylvain find himself traveling by pterodactyl?  The deformed are dressed like cavemen.  They do live in caves, but again, this world has scientists.  The time travel stuff works, but feels unnecessary.  So, the brain doesn't start attacking Sylvain's era for a thousand years, so Sylvain has to travel to the future to stop a threat attacking today.  Right.  So, for the rest of Sylvain's life, he could travel back out to sea and have conversations with Metamorphis.  The more interesting question is why weren't there Gandaharians for Metamorphis to devour in the future?  Not a question that was asked.

This is only the 3rd French animated film I have watched and it fits nicely into the weirdness.  Fantastic Planet (1973) was much stranger though it has a similar aesthetic.

Mediocre.  Skip.