Taxandria
Entry updated 20 May 2024. Tagged: Film.
Belgian/French/German/Dutch live-action/animated film (1994). Iblis Films, Bibo Films, Les Productions Dussart. Directed by Raoul Servais. Written by Frank Daniel, Raoul Servais and Alain Robbe-Grillet. Cast includes Daniel Emilfork, Richard Kattan, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Andrew Sachs, Elliott Spiers and Katja Studt. 82 minutes. Colour.
In the present day, Jan (Kattan), a prince, arrives incognito with his tutor (Sachs) at a coastal resort during the off season, so he may study without distraction. The locals warn him to keep away from the lighthouse and its keeper, Karol (Mueller-Stahl), who helps refugees avoid capture by the townsfolk that watch from the dunes. Nonetheless Jan wanders over and finds Karol cleaning oiled seagulls: he is handed one to release and told to close his eyes as he does so. When Jan lets go of the bird he has a vision of a City in the land of Taxandria.
"It's a land without clocks, where the only Time is oppressed," explains Karol, taking him to the top of the lighthouse and telling him to stare into the beacon: this leads to further visions. The city is derelict, with buildings at an angle, holes torn out of canvases, pictures in books removed and halves of beds missing; in the street are rows of chairs with elongated bowler hats resting on them. In later visits Jan sees into its past and the story of a young man, Aimé (Spiers). At school Aimé is taught how peaceful Taxandria was created to avoid destruction by a "great cataclysm" (see Disaster); it is frozen in time "where progress, the source of all evil, has been stopped": before then was chaos, "the era of the machine ... [and] insane Inventions". Examples of the latter are cameras and mass production (see Automation). Women spend most of their time locked away in the Gardens of Mirth, only visited by men for Sex. Secretary Virgilus (Mueller-Stahl) heads public meetings where everyone chants, "Hail the eternal present." Taxandria is ostensibly a monarchy, ruled by two conjoined princes with Virgilus supposedly only their mouthpiece – but they are long dead (see Politics). Virgilus is also Aimé's father. When Jan asks why Virgilus and the teacher look like Karol and his tutor, it is explained what he saw was only in his imagination. Karol then provides some back-story: Taxandria's Scientists had wanted to reduce the length and bitterness of their planet's winters (see Weather Control), so attempted to "double the sun": however this caused a succession of natural disasters – including floods and immense stalagmites erupting from the ground – named the "great cataclysm".
Virgilus tells Princess Ailée (Studt) that Aimé will soon visit her in the Gardens of Mirth, whereupon she briefly escapes to tell Aimé she has no interest in him ("You men are weird creatures") and rejects Taxandria's treatment of women (see Feminism); before she leaves he shows her some of his sketches (drawing is illegal, but he secretly designs inventions), including one for a flying machine. This conversation takes place at the offices of the Present, the nation's only newspaper (see Media Landscape), where Aimé is now an apprentice: he has an accident with the movable type, causing the next edition of the paper to be gibberish – but this is interpreted by the authorities as a coded manifesto for change (see Paranoia). The editor is arrested: when Aimé goes to confess he falls down a well, finding himself in an underground storage facility full of forbidden items: art showing the human form, cameras and suchlike. His confession forgotten, he steals a camera obscura; when he tells the princess she insists he photographs the princes, as circulation of their image will lead to change. He surreptitiously does so (they are kept hidden behind curtains): developing the photograph he sees their mummified bodies. Meanwhile, the Minister (Emilfork), going behind Virgilus' back, orders Aimé's arrest: but he has fled to a deserted coastal town, hoping to escape by boat, only to finds the ocean gone, the exposed seabed covered with stranded, decrepit ships. The princess, who has fled the Gardens dressed as a boy, joins him; but they are both caught by the Minister who confiscates the photograph and has it published in the Present. Virgilus, having lost his authority, cuts down the princes' corpses: their fall is juxtaposed with the toppling of statues and the destruction of the Berlin Wall (see Cold War). Now free, Aimé and Ailée (still in male attire) are able to leave Taxandria, and do so in a flying machine comprising a rowboat dangling from a Balloon, with a propeller at the back (see Airships).
This final part of the story is told to the prince just before he leaves. Karol has been aware of the boy's identity all along and asks him to sign a photo: the prince asks who he should make it out to: Karol or Aimé? "Karol." As he leaves, the prince promises Karol he will ensure the men who surround the lighthouse will not be allowed to harm him.
Taxandria is a collapsing, partially flooded cityscape of broken architecture, where people do the work of machines, such as lifts being raised and lowered by hand with pulleys. It has a run-down Victorian look, though not Steampunk, as steam power would be far too advanced a Technology; there is a strong Franz Kafka feel, particularly in the nation's bureaucracy; whilst there are scenes that recall L Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900). The country is a Dystopia, but there is some Humour; instead of telephones there are sinister-looking policemen wearing the tall bowler hats, who line the streets, often waist deep in water, each repeating the messages passed on by their neighbour (see Communication) – which often has a "Chinese whispers" result.
The backgrounds for the nation of Taxandria are mainly painted, with the actors moving among them; the holiday resort scenes are all live action. The acting is mixed – Elliott Spiers was very ill and would die before the film was released; the most dynamic character is the princess, unlike Aimé a deliberate instigator of change – but she is reduced to a secondary role (see Women in SF). The illustrated sets and some of the details of Taxandrian life are the film's main virtues and are often impressive (those in the holiday resort are largely forgettable, save for the final scene in the lighthouse). The story itself does not fully engage. It might be argued that Taxandria is Karol's fantasy, though that would require a high degree of susceptibility on Jan's part; if reality, it is not clear whether it is a parallel Earth or another world entirely. The film shows the influence of the Belgian/French Graphic Novel series Les Cités Obscures (graph 1982-2023; vt Stories of the Fantastic; vt Cities of the Fantastic) by François Schuiten and Benoît Peeters; Schuiten worked on Taxandria as its production designer. Raoul Servais (1928-2023) was an important Belgian animator whose animated/live action Harpya (1979), about the relationship between a man and a harpy (see Mythology), won the Best Short Film Palme d'Or at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival. [SP]
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