Arco | The Deight Night Review
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| Arco (2026, Ugo Bienvenu, Picturehouse Entertainment) |
As the animated feature debut of up and coming French director Ugo Bienvenu, Arco, follows the story of its titular character, a young boy who lives in the far future where humanity has moved to living in mechanical trees in the sky to avoid the rising tides on the planet's surface. The people of this future are able to travel in rainbow flight suits which just so happen to be able to travel through time as well. Against the wishes of his family, Arco sneaks off to take his first flight and in so doing accidentally slips through time to the year 2075. In 2075 lives Iris, a girl who, with her baby brother Peter, is looked after mostly by a robot called Mikki who's been programmed by her ever absent parents who solely communicate through holograms. When the two characters meet they grow an everlasting bond as Iris tackles the challenges of her world and evades the pursuit of fanatics and authorities all to get Arco back to his time, but along the way they discover a lot about themselves and the worlds they live in.
Arco is quite simply the perfect family film - it has to be said - and really and truly a perfect film full stop. It tackles so many important themes that teach children valuable lessons about life and giving pertinent messages about how integral parents are, even when they seem like oppressors. The central theme of Arco's narrative is that actions have consequences, which is a lesson that both Arco and Iris learn in the toughest of ways when they both go on adventures against the commands of their guardians. Similarly, both of the main children have parents who are either overbearing or completely absent and all are proven to be very loving and caring by the film's end - showing younger viewers the many forms in which a parent's love can come through and parents themselves getting a well deserved pat on the back. With all of this packaged into a film, explored with a genius script, Arco is a film with some of the most emotionally crippling scenes of the year so far and puts Ugo Bienvenu's animated career on an early parallel with legends such as Hayao Miyazaki and Brad Bird.
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| Arco (2026, Ugo Bienvenu, Picturehouse Entertainment) |
Films about the future always reflect the fears of the present, Blade Runner and Robocop both tackled the rise of technology and the growing fears of fascism in the United States of the 1980s, for example. Arco is no different and in both futures that are presented in the film's story, Planet Earth is ravaged by ecological disasters, with Iris's 2075 being under constant threat of lockdowns, forest fires and storms while Arco's far future shows a completely flooded Earth. This, on paper, makes the film sound dystopian, but the film's tone and the characters' attitude toward the feats that challenge them makes for a very hopeful and utopian view of what could be an otherwise horrific fate. It's refreshing to see a film that looks at the obstacles of the present and gives a ray of hope (like a rainbow) in a world that can often seem overly depressing. There are no monologues of characters bemoaning the greed and ignorance of the people that came before them and instead the film simply shows two worlds facing up to what is coming against them - again showing Arco's talent for subtle and emotional thematic depth.
Speaking on Arco's various futures, this is one of the many examples of just how original and unique the film is. While the basic story outline - a child from another world befriends a local child and both try to escape the clutches of various forces concluding with an emotional goodbye - has been seen many times before in the forms of many projects all starting from E.T: The Extra Terrestrial. However, Arco's worlds, writing and especially its animation set it universes apart from other E.T affiliates like Lilo and Stitch and Stranger Things. A time travel story set in two different futures is something that could only come out of something like Doctor Who before this (and even that usually contains a contemporary character) and of course, Arco's animation is otherworldly.
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| Arco (2026, Ugo Bienvenu, Picturehouse Entertainment) |
A creator's love for the planet and the art of animation has never been as obvious as it has been in Arco. The animation itself is a French twist on the beautiful hand drawn stylings of Studio Ghibli and while every single frame is gorgeously realised and every element is lovingly designed and crafted, the film's style reaches its peak when depicting the natural world. Never before has a film made an audience feel like it's literally being taken on a peaceful walk through the countryside with stunningly drawn landscapes and quite frankly the best natural soundscapes put to film. There are scenes dedicated simply to birdsong and the sounds of the world going by, these moments are among the film’s many highlights and again perfectly reinforce its hopeful message of environmental protection.
French Animation is an area of the film world that doesn't always get its fair dues in mainstream circles, not in anywhere near the same levels as Japanese animation at least. It's clear though that there's a very forceful push for this film to be seen by British and American audiences. While many foreign animated films would normally make their English language dub with voice actors who make a career of doing such work, the producers of Arco have provided a dub cast made up of big names like Will Ferrell, Andy Samberg, Mark Ruffalo and Natalie Portman. Indeed, Portman is billed as a producer of the film as well. These sorts of names only usually attach themselves to the likes of Studio Ghibli, but there's clearly something they all see in Arco. They are certainly not mistaken, it's one of the best animated films of the decade.
Arco is a cosmic blend of E.T: The Extra Terrestrial and Interstellar - taking a very emotional inspiration from the latter - all of which is added with a gorgeously realised and fantastically designed animated world. It's utterly filled to the brim with character, depth and emotion. It's an unforgettable gem that's a perfect film for the whole family to enjoy and love for a lifetime. It's an animated triumph, one of the best feature debuts of any director and a decade defining masterpiece. Put simply, watch it.
★★★★★
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