Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4584 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-11-27
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 105 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Style trumps substance in Renaissance, a 2006 French film whose breathtaking visuals largely overcome its shortcomings in the areas of story and character development. Detailed in a lengthy and absorbing "making of" featurette, the film's look is a combination of CG animation, motion capture, and a palette consisting solely of black & white (there are a few splashes of color late in the proceedings, but no gray whatsoever). And while it has a few obvious antecedents (the filmmakers readily acknowledge the influence of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, not to mention the much earlier, Expressionist work of Fritz Lang and Orson Welles), Renaissance, with its commingling of heavily processed live action and graphic novel sensibilities, looks very little like anything you've ever seen before. The setting is Paris in the year 2054, and it is here that director Christian Volckman and his crew do their best work.

The French capital is certainly recognisable (the Eiffel Tower and Montmartre's Sacre Coeur are two familiar landmarks), but its classic architecture is glazed with all manner of futuristic touches, from vast glass penthouses to layers of transparent walkways outside Notre Dame Cathedral; and with the preponderance of the action taking place at night, frequently in the rain, the City of Light more often suggests a very literal representation of film noir. As for the story, it's nothing special. Hard-nosed police Captain Barthélémy Karas (voiced in this English version by Daniel Craig) is searching for a female scientist who works for Avalon, one of those sinister mega-corporations that seem to run everything in movies like this; seems the woman, who has been kidnapped, possesses what's referred to as "the protocol for immortality," and Avalon, which promises good health, beauty, and long life for all, desperately wants her back. The characters are a bit stiff (physically and otherwise), the dialogue is occasionally stilted, and the film is sometimes so dark that it's hard to tell what's going on. But most of Renaissance looks so amazing that such deficiencies can easily be ignored, at least the first time through. --Sam Graham

Synopsis
Set in mid 21st century Paris, RENAISSANCE sees the brilliant young researcher Ilona Tassueiv kidnapped. Her employers at the gargantuan multinational company Avalon call for hostage retrieval specialist Officer Bartholomew Karas to take charge of the case. Karas digs deep into the Parisian underbelly to find information about the kidnapping. However, things are not as they seem and Karas is forced to question the motives of everyone. The animated film noir has a distinctive and highly impressive visual style. The live action footage has been digitally rendered, leading to an exceptional level of realism. With a similar look to SIN CITY, RENAISSANCE succeeds in making the Paris of 2054 look a dark and menacing place--perfectly suiting the film noir style of the production--and creating an animated film that looks a lot like a live action film.

Customer Reviews

The future of films?
The stark black and white rotoscope style animation of this film is striking. I like it very much as unlike in films with CGI it makes the environments appear seamless with the protagonists. Because this is a science fiction film this is very useful as it allows the presentation of Paris some fifty years hence to be more acceptable.

The story is a winding sort of affair, starting with the disappearance of a young researcher after an argument with her sister and a maverick cop's rescuing of a kid from a hostage situation. A big corporation called Avalon that claims it is on your side for life is involved. There's a mysterious scientist involved too and men who dress in suits that make them invisible. As a piece of film noir it works rather well. Yes, some, if not most of the story elements are not original and the plot element on which the story is hinged isn't really dealt with in any detail, but it still holds the attention. Aside from the big corporation and a scene where it rains, I'm not sure I see the comparison with Blade Runner, though. The ending is swish.

The voice work is good. Jonathan Pryce is good value for money, as is Ian Holm and Daniel Craig. The animation is pretty fab. It's worth a viewing or two.

Eye candy - it won't fill you up.
I wanted to love this film.

I was wearing socks when I started watching this film - and I wanted it to blow them off.

The visuals take a few minutes to get used to - the stark contrasting black and white animation is very flash, and some scenes - especially the cityscapes were dazzlingly stylish. The way shadows were used was very impressive.

Some have knocked the story for being unoriginal - but I thought it was okay. A good dystopian plot - which became quite predictable at one point, but had an ending I didn't expect.

I think the main weakness of this film lies with the characters. There was never any real depth to them. Daniel Craig delivers Karas' lines with perfect clarity, but whether it's the voice acting or the script - the character remains uncharismatic. Infact, the character is dull, so you end up watching the film in order to experience the visuals rather than to enjoy the actual story.

This DVD release has committed the high crime of excluding the original soundtrack. I don't understand why these have been removed, for subtitle fans like me who would rather enjoy the original performances; this feels disrespectful - especially when the film was six years in production.

So in a nutshell: Stylish animation, nice and smooth owing to the motion capture method used makes for a genuinely unique looking film. Bland characterisations spoil this film - but the dubbed soundtrack maybe largely responsible for this. I'd love a chance to watch and review the original feature.

Detection in black and white. As is my verdict.
Renaissance is a very slick black and white animation. The cityscapes of this Paris of the future are especially impressive - be it the topside, the glass covered roadways, or the sections below and in the sewers. The wide panorama shots of the city are just stunning. When it comes to the people, however, I feel this form of animation lends itself rather less well. Some of the characters animations get lost in the cut-over between black and white. Also, because the animation isn't modelled on the actual actors (contrasting with, say, `A Scanner Darkly') the characters don't seem very lifelike. The choice of actors is pretty poor too. Daniel Craig's Captain Karas is a monosyllabic, clichéd hard guy type cop, without much passion. He's been much better in other films (e.g. Layer Cake). Jonathan Pryce as a senior figure in the sinister pharmaceutical giant Avalon seemed plain wrong. Both main female parts were irritating (and also had that fake, heart-shaped face, perfect teeth kind of look to the character models) while the brief relationship between Karas and the darker sister was like a couple of pieces clay getting together. Hard to like or get involved.

I can't comment on whether the film comes across better in French - though why did they change the illuminated billboards to English language? Can't we handle a little bit of foreign lingua?

The story too is confused, with jumps in logic that I couldn't fathom. You know, how did they get from one lead to another. Intuitive detective work doesn't help the viewer if no explanation is given!

So, two stars for presentation. None for storyline or `acting' or anything else. Life is harsh, eh? But if you're renting, at £2 a shot it's worth a look for the glorious city skyline alone. Paris certainly seems wet in the future (and God help us all when it's up to our necks).