Taxandria

Belgium, Germany, France

1994

82 Min

Color

English

Currently 3.3/5 Stars.
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PROD Heinz Bibo, Dany Geys, Tarsicius Vanhuysse

SCR Frank Daniel, Raoul Servais, Alain Robbe-Grillet

DP Gilberto Azevedo, Walther van den Ende

CAST Richard Kattan, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Elliott Spiers, Katja Studt, Julien Schoenaerts, Andrew Sachs

This European produced animation/live-action fairy tale will appeal to both children and adults. The frequently surrealistic work took 15 years to make and cost $15 million. It is the tale of young Prince Jan, who has been sent to a quiet coastal resort to study for his final exams, but instead Jan spends most his time with his new friend the lighthouse keeper. Jan ignores the warnings of the locals who claim that the loony lighthouse man eats sea gulls for breakfast. Maybe he is crazy, but this does not prevent the prince from entering the keeper’s dream-land Taxandria, a phantasmagorical place devoid of time, memory, and progress.

Director

Raoul Servais

Raoul Servais was born in Ostend in 1928. He studied Decorative Arts at the Ghent Royal Academy of Fine Arts, where, fifteen years later, he was to become the founder of the European continent’s first department for animation. Though Servais practices drawing and occasionally monumental wall-painting, he is best known as maker of some twelve animated films, which won him several prizes at most major international film festivals. —awn.com