I'm conflicted about this movie. It has quite a few problems, but there's still so much to be admired in it. The film I'm talking about is "Mune: Guardian of the Moon". It's a French film (although it had input from big names all over) that was released throughout Europe over the past couple of years, but so far the UK and US have only seen screenings at festivals. Despite having an English original audio track, without a star cast I don't know what kind of wider release the film may get, which is why I felt the need to write this entry. It also suffers from a bad trailer. This film may end up going straight to DVD like so many other hybrid CGI films, but I feel Mune stands apart from them.
The animation is of a higher quality, the performances are better and overall it feels much more polished. Honestly, it could almost be mistaken for a Dreamworks film if not for the art style, it uses both CGI and 2D animation. "Guardian of the Moon" was created to have a simple story to be understood across as wide an audience as possible, and where it is fairly cliché as a result, the designs and ideas of the world the film takes place in are incredibly creative. The film sees a world where the sun and moon are protected by guardians who walk them around the planet atop giant titans, and keep harmony in the world. Mune finds himself chosen as a guardian and has to find a way to restore peace after accidentally severing the moon from its titan. There's actually quite a lot at stake in this film, the entire planet starts dying at one point... Light spoiler.
I'll start with an issue in the film, the characters. Like the story, they're a little cliché too. Mune is kind of the every man type, but he's mischievous and irresponsible. Sohone is the selfish strong guy, but he's got a heart. And Glim is the smart sheltered one who can still fend for herself (Glim is actually the most interesting character of the three, but I'll get back to that). Their personalities are all fine, but they don't have much more depth to them. They all have the same arc of realising their full potential. This works fine, but I can't help but wonder what more could have been explored. The character designs, however, clearly had a lot of thought put in to them.
The aesthetic of day and night is used wonderfully throughout the film, and the character designs help reflect this in two distinct races. Sohone is from the day, his race being made up of rock people. Mune is from the night, his race is made up of fauns. The day people's designs can be fairly creative with the way each individual is formed differently, and Sohone himself is made of amber, meaning he stands out and is more colourful than most of the others. But the night designs in this film are what I really love. Mune is the protagonist, so it makes sense we'd spend more time in the night environment, and there's more of a separate culture from the more human day people. The fauns are furred and blue, their shades seemingly darkening with age. They are more reserved, move animalistically and make little chirps and whistles as they breath life into bio-luminescent plants in the night. I adore Mune's design, even if it's simple. I love the shades of blue, his big expressive eyes and ears, and he's a all fluffy. He's adorable and I want to hug him.
(Prrrr?)
And just look at the design of the moon titan. It's much more intricate than the sun titan and in my opinion, more interesting. It's a like an emu/camel thing with what looks like fur, but when you see it close up it's covered in leaves and plants. On the inside, it's driven by a giant harp strung by fluffy owl-spiders. Tell me that's not cool and imaginative as hell!
(Look at this thing!)
(Look at those things!)
A lot of designs in the film take influence from elements such as rock, water, plants or fire; but this also leads to some confusing choices. There are some characters in the film who appear to be the only ones of their design. The moon guardian before Mune, Yule, is a kind of plant creature, there's another random plant guy who gets a couple of lines, but he's mostly pointless. I mean, it's mentioned that the guardians had been doing their jobs for hundreds of years, and the moon guardians before Yule seem to have all been plants... so I guess the plant people just live a long time, but there's fewer of them? Little things like that are kind of distracting in the film, but at the same time, they're really not that important. It's best not to over think it, I guess.
There's a similar situation with Yule's original successor, Leyoon. He's a fish creature. There's at least one other in the film, but he's the only one of his particular design; that being to look specifically evil. Well, that's another thing I like about this film, no one is really evil, just corrupted. Leyoon himself is the lesser of two bad guys in the film, but even so he still has more of a motive. He trained for years to be he next guardian of the moon, then Mune gets chosen at random instead. I'd be mad too.
(No, I didn't mean it!)
Now back to talking about Glim. I mentioned the whole thing with day and night in the film. Glim is from in between, dawn and dusk. It's another situation with only her and her father being designed the way they are, but that's also what's interesting about Glim. She's made of wax. She can only comfortably live in the shadows, at dusk or at dawn (or at night with a torch). If she gets too cold she freezes, too hot and she melts. From what I've read, this is supposed to be portrayed like a disability, and it works for the most part. She's got the cliché overprotective father, but given how literally fragile she is, you understand why. Plus it's not like she sits around feeling sorry for herself. Glim is as capable as the other characters in the film despite occasional difficulties, and the film doesn't get patronising about it. I actually think it would have been more interesting if Glim somehow became a guardian instead of Mune or Sohone, she's just got a little more going on and more to prove.
The main downside with Glim though, is that she's virtually the only female character in the entire film. There are female background characters and the passing mention of Glim's dead mother, but she's the only female character who really has lines, even if they're sometimes purely expositional. This isn't a problem specific to this film, but still.
Clearly this film has issues. It's writing could be more refined, there are tiny but distracting choices and overall it's nothing too original. But the execution of the ideas in the film are definitely what make it stand out for me. The designs, the colours, and the entire mythos of this film are so inventive and gorgeous, it's hard not to admire them. The film score is beautiful too, giving unique sounds to day and night and complimenting the film perfectly.
Despite all it's flaws, I still enjoy this film, and highly recommend it to any animation fans out there.
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GIFs and images sourced from Google images.
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