Taxandria (film)

Taxandria
Directed by	Raoul Servais
Written by	Frank Daniel Raoul Servais Alain Robbe-Grillet
Produced by	Iblis Films Bibo TV&Film (Berlin) Les Productions Drussart (Paris) Prascino Pictures (Amsterdam), e.a.
Cinematography	Raoul Servais (animation)
Music by	Kim Bullard
Distributed by	ANAGRAM
Release date	1994
Running time	76 min
Country	Belgium
Language	English

Taxandria (1994) is a partially animated film by Raoul Servais, starring, among others, Armin Mueller-Stahl. Being Servais's first and to date only feature film, Taxandria is notable for the use of Servais's distinct animation style, the servaisgraphie.

With François Schuiten as the film's production designer, it exhibits a lose connection with the Belgian graphic novel series Les Cités Obscures by Schuiten and Benoît Peeters. In the Obscure Cities series, at times characters refer to the vanished city-state of Taxandria which was accidentally removed from the planet during a failed scientific experiment, an event also related in the movie Taxandria.

Plot

Young prince Jan has been sent to a quiet coastal resort to study for his final exams, but instead he spends most of his time with his new friend, the lighthouse keeper. Jan ignores the warnings of the locals who claim that the loony lighthouse man (Armin Mueller-Stahl) eats seagulls for breakfast. Maybe the lighthouse keeper is crazy, but this does not prevent him to introduce prince Jan to the dreamland Taxandria, a phantasmagorical place devoid of time, memory, and progress. Jan learns that a reason for the lighthouse keeper's notoriety among the locals is that from time to time he hides political refugees from Taxandria from the authorities; in one scene, we see some of these fugitives arrive at the coast in a boat and taken in by the lighthouse keeper. It is however never made clear whether Taxandria really exists or if the viewer only sees what the lighthouse keeper relates to prince Jan, although once Jan is transported to Taxandria simply by looking into the lighthouse's rotating light while the keeper is away.

As a failed scientific experiment in the past accidentally removed Taxandria from its home planet, all science, progress, and measure of time are outlawed as a consequence, whereas the Perennial Present reigns supreme. The land is ruled by two conjoined princes (see conjoined twin) always hidden behind a curtain, and their police force who insure that everyone there lives in the Perennial Present, as it is illegal to discuss the past or future. The police is headed by this world's evil counterpart of the benevolent lighthouse keeper (a double role for actor Armin Mueller-Stahl) communicating the will and orders of the mute Two Princes, making him the effective ruler of Taxandria.

While at first Taxandria seems a magical, wonderful place, Jan soon sees the darker side of this strange world. The people are not happy living only in the present; it is repressive. Soon he sees that many suffer from extreme paranoia. One young man, Aimé, seems to be a catalyst for change in Taxandria, as he is obsessed with learning about the country's past. Later, Aimé falls in love with Princess Ailée who is trying to free herself from the paradisaical confines of the Garden of Mirth, where women are kept away from men, and discovers the secret of the evil Head of Police, as well as the true nature of the Two Princes.

Awards

Taxandria won the 1996 Best Film Award at the Franco-Belgian Fantafestival, the Grand Prize of European Fantasy Film in Silver, the International Fantasy Film Award, and the International Fantasy Film Special Jury Award at the 1996 Fantasporto festival. It was nominated for the 1996 Grand Prize of European Fantasy Film in Gold at the Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film, the 1996 Golden Frog Award at the Camerimage festival, and the International Fantasy Film Award at the 1996 Fantasporto festival.

See also

• Taxandria (region)

Source

• Taxandria