Antebios

It's hard to describe a film like Antebios. For as much time as I've spent reflecting on it, I don't rightly recall if I've ever spoken about it before in such a forum.

I suppose now will have to suffice.

Antebios is an animated short from French filmmaker François Baranger. My notes tell me it was produced in 1998-1999, and it remains some of the best computer-generated animation I've ever seen. You may not have liked the aimless, go-everywhere-and-go-nowhere plot behind Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, but damned if you can't call it a pretty movie. The studio behind Final Fantasy went to extreme lengths to try to make the film look as real as it could. Characters were designed to reflect actual human shapes and measurements, not the typical caricatures you usually get in Pixar films. You were supposed to get the idea that these animated people existed because they didn't want to take human actors and try to crudely superimpose them into gorgeous CGI shots of aliens and dream sequences and energy explosions. "If the visuals are going to be so important, why not just factor the characters into it, too?" they asked themselves.

Antebios has much of the same style as Final Fantasy, with the added advantage that the guy who made it didn't go out of business because it sucked so badly it made a small fraction of its production cost. Antebios does what Final Fantasy never bothered doing: it told a cohesive story, and a richly textured one at that. I suppose I could movie-a-minute Final Fantasy if I tried:

Military guy: "Aliens are bad. Let's kill them."

Soldier: "Yes. Aliens are bad. Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Girl: "No. Aliens are good. They are just misunderstood."

Military guy: "I'm too set in my ways to consider that idea. Those who disagree with me should be killed, too."

Soldier: "Aliens are good? Really?"

Girl: "Yes. Let's help them."

Soldier: "OK."

Military guy is killed, much like Ahab, as a direct result of his unrelenting desire to kill the aliens.

Girl: "We helped the aliens! Sorry you died, soldier."

Soldier's ghost: "That's OK."

THE END

Granted, Antebios probably didn't make much money either, but then again, Baranger wasn't exactly trying to make a profit. He's an artist, dammit! His story at its simplest is "organism 1 needs help of organism 2 to kill organism 3", yet it is actually capable of holding much more detail inside the characters' intentions and motivations. In a little more detail: a space alien crash lands on an uncharted planet where he must enlist two humans to help destroy the antebios – an unforgiving monster that's a cross between a crab, a flea, and your worst nightmares – that attacked the ship and caused it to crash in the first place.

Keep in mind this alien doesn't speak English, and humans aren't the most xenophiliacal species around. Adding intrigue to action is a chilling passage given at the beginning of the film: the alien's government has decreed that any species incapable of interstellar travel must be destroyed on contact. It's a law. It's on the books. And the alien knows it. How he deals with his dilemma ("Ask the humans for help destroying this unstoppable devourer of worlds, then be sure to kill them,") is intense, and one of the most memorable scenes put on film. It's likely the reason I still remember Antebios so well. That's what's so great about it: you usually think something as momentous as first contact between alien species is a revered event that fosters goodwill and community. You usually think that aliens who meet humans, who are by all accounts primitive animals, are going to naturally be more capable of compassion and friendship, what with their superior technology and esteemed other-worldliness and all. Baranger takes it in the opposite direction. Both sides are deeply interested in eliminating the other, yet at the same time they possess a mutual goal of preventing a common enemy from eliminating them both.

Baranger is still producing art, in CGI and other media as well, and it's all very detailed, very high quality stuff. I hope he puts out a DVD or a coffee table book sometime.