Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Enki Bilal - Immortal (ad vitam)

A couple of days ago, I watched the movie Immortal (ad vitam). An apocalyptic SciFi flic, which was jointly produced by France, Italy and the UK in 2004, and didn't make a big fuzz when it came out. For understandable reasons.
The Internet Movie DataBase (imdb) has it that 'Immortal (ad vitam)' "[w]as one of several films around the world that were the first to use an entirely 'digital backlot' (i.e. the actors were all shot in front of blue- and green-screens with all the backgrounds added in post-production...)". The hook is, however, that it was a European production without the monstrous budget Hollywood productions (such as 'Sin City') usually have.
Although the (satisfactory) plot was based on the comics by Enki Bilal, who at the same time directed the movie, the particular style and mood of his comic designs couldn't be transferred.
I wonder how he could allow for such unstylish animations in his movie, in which human actors and actresses (e.g. the German actor Thomas Kretschmann as Nikopol) perform next to completely (but unsophisticatedly) animated characters.
The only solution I could imagine would be that either the budget wasn't big enough, or the technology not sufficiently advanced. He should've shot the movie in ten years.

Upshot: Check out Enki Bilal's comic work but rather wait for a remake of 'Immortal (ad vitam)' in 2015.

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