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Renaissance

Renaissance (2006)

September. 23,2006
|
6.6
|
R
| Animation Action Science Fiction

To find Ilona and unlock the secrets of her disappearance, Karas must plunge deep into the parallel worlds of corporate espionage, organized crime and genetic research - where the truth imprisons whoever finds it first and miracles can be bought but at a great price.

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Reviews

Karry
2006/09/23

Best movie of this year hands down!

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SpuffyWeb
2006/09/24

Sadly Over-hyped

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SpunkySelfTwitter
2006/09/25

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

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Dynamixor
2006/09/26

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

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shoobe01-1
2006/09/27

The biggest problem people seem to have with this is understanding the genre so having proper expectations. So, some basics: - It is animated. It's not rotoscoped, but is entirely animated. Yes, computers did much of it, like anything today. - It's uniquely styled. It's no a ripoff, knockoff, etc. - It is animated because it is trying to be a comic book. It works. It's required in many ways, as it's b&w comic in tone and action, and is in a future city which would be overwhelming if rendered in CGI at live action quality, cheap if rendered in typical (e.g. Batman animated movie) style. Also some bits of technology that had comic conceits, and wouldn't have worked at all in live action style. - It's an SF detective noir. Which is a bit of a thing. Think Blade Runner or later Ghost in the Shell. - There are grays, but note when they happen. Use of gradients vs. black and white is occasionally for depth (transparency) but mostly for thematic reasons. The story is fine. The acting is good (though not everyone is equally good)... but not always drawn well. Some beautiful drawing, but too many faces are oversimplified, or overly stuff. Themes are as creepy as most any film, and coupled with sound design, animation style and editing, it works.

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Desertman84
2006/09/28

Renaissance is a black-and-white animated science fiction film that features a rare visual style in which almost all images are exclusively black and white, with only occasional color used for detail.It centers on a policeman investigating the kidnapping of a scientist who holds the key to eternal life in a futuristic Paris.It has an English cast led by Daniel Craig together with Catherine McCormack,Romola Garai and Jonathan Pryce; and a French cast that includes Patrick Floersheim,Laura Blanc,Virginie Mery and Gabriel Le Doze.It mixes Blade Runner aesthetics with stark, Sin City-style visuals, Renaissance was filmed using motion- capture animation and features extravagant production design by Alfred Frazzani. French director Christian Volckman was at helm for this film.In the labyrinthine streets of 21st century Paris, where every move is monitored and ever action recorded, a mysterious kidnapping sets into motion a catastrophic series of events that could ultimately prove the downfall of civilization. The year is 2054, and the Avalon Corporation has securely woven its way into every aspect of modern living by making youth and beauty the most valued commodity around. Troubles arise in the City of Lights when a high-profile scientist named Ilona is kidnapped, and policeman Barthélémy Karas is assigned the task of solving the case. As his investigation leads Karas down a menacing path where death lurks around every bend, he soon discovers that events that took place in 2006 have cast a dark shadow over the future of humankind.The film attempts to blend sci-fi wonder with stark noir animation, but is often more fun to look at than to watch. It's a testament to the production design that one quickly gets caught up in the story without ever completely losing the "ooh-ahh" factor. Ominous, wall-to-wall music bolsters the appropriately uneasy mood, and the bittersweet conclusion is satisfying. The picture is visually stark and isolated compositions, spiked with high contrast menace, are impressive in their artistic detail. However, the perfunctory plot is rather average .It is a fusion of crime clichés and dystopian futurism, if not exactly original, is nonetheless vigorously engaging.

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Cristi_Ciopron
2006/09/29

I am glad being able to say almost only positive things about the movie with Karas and the Tasuiev sisters, RENAISSANCE.And firstly, that it looks as it ought to look; a boys' adventure, RENAISSANCE is the tale of a cop's investigation in search of a missing young scientist—Ilona Tasuiev, the geneticist and researcher for the Avalon company.The tale of Karas, Ilona and Bislane is, though much less known than SIN CITY, the better movie, and the one more appreciated by the connoisseurs. To the French comics aficionados it will be even more meaningful (I have enriched my French comics collection last week, though I'm not so up—to—date). The atmosphere, the music, the characters, their lines, the plot are all nice and endearing. A Parisian top cop, Karas, is displayed to find a young woman who was a rising star of medical—genetic research, Ilona Tasuiev—a mildly hot blonde, whose rebel sister Bislane was erotically preferable, I guess.For me, an oldie aficionado of comics and TV series, RENAISSANCE, a marvelously beautiful cartoon, was like a replay of a WILD WILD WEST episode—here, a mythological past replaced with an equally mythological future—more jaded and blasé but, in a sense, as thrilling. RENAISSANCE is not suspenseful; nor does it look especially well—paced; but it's seducing and hypnotic. Moreover, it achieves sketching, albeit briefly, a world, a true world—and we will think about the Avalon, Nakata, Jonas Mueller, the Tasuiev sisters, and Goran, Farfella, and Karas telling of his distant childhood in Kasbah …. I liked RENAISSANCE's feel, of a certain gentleness and affability and adventurousness, and also the professional, assured look; among these new cartoons, this one and Linklater's Dick adaptation (--the only and first Dick adaptation ever--) stood out for me as works of beauty and genuine excitement.I thought the futuristic devices were appropriate and, when not conventional, vividly eerie (like the invisibility costumes).As advisable, the characters have exotic names, like Bislane and Farfella, mostly gathered from the arts and entertainment's world (Goran and Ilona and Naghib …).None seems to have noticed that RENAISSANCE's poster features a Rourke look-alike—that guy is Marv; which doesn't make it a SIN CITY rip--off, but not a paragon of originality either, and in fact there's more resemblance to the Miller tale—namely, the bleak futuristic look of a decayed society, the brio of the hero (in fact a cross of Willis' character and Rourke's persona in the previous movie …)–on the other hand, this cartoon breathes a more public air, a brim of straight adventurousness, and, in a word, it's like SIN CITY for kids—well, naughtier kids I mean, 'cause there's a bit of nudity on display. To what I have said one might retort that the traits mentioned are characteristic, even as clichés and common places of the futuristic more adult comics' look; true enough, and it was oldie Miller to have brought that things on screen and RENAISSANCE bears some resemblances here and there. Now it's also fair that every RING ought to have its ERAGORN, so to each sin city, its renaissance. I admit being quite partial to these bleak futuristic tales, a rather undemanding specialty.

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johnnyboyz
2006/09/30

Good grief, what are the Europeans at here? Renaissance is a sort of sprawling Chinatown mystery packed with elements of noir crossed with Ridley Scott's Blade Runner in the sense the makers have tried to be clever or just different to everyone else and have set it in the future, thus adding a science fiction ingredient. I read that the film was jointly produced between Britain, France and Luxembourg but I'm sure there's more to that than the mere fact the cast is British and the setting is Paris – I'm not sure where Luxembourg figure into the equation though.I guess the reason this drew so much attention and turned so many heads was because of its animation. The animation isn't used for the sake of being post-modern, it is used on an artistic merit in order to recreate Paris, but Paris circa the year 2054. To shoot it in live action and include all the necessary special effects in order to create a world so far into the future would require money that the French, British and respectively, the Luxembourgian film industries do not have. The film is Richard Linklater's 2001 documentary-come-film Waking Life crossed with the more brutal, more out and out fictitious Sin City with its uncanny animation and attention to character movement, whilst recreating a world unbeknownst to us but seemingly normal amongst all the decay to its inhabitants.However, the film itself is something a little less spectacular when you peel away the visuals and the overall look. Is this the French partly trying to take back the label of 'Film Noir'? What made Film Noir famous throughout the classical era of Hollywood is exactly the sort of content Renaissance use for this picture. Like its source of inspiration, Renaissance does deliver on the basic level of noir; it is gloomy and relatively downbeat with questions raised and moral boundaries sort of crossed by people we should expect better from. The hero, or anti-hero as he sort of becomes, is Barthélémy Karas (Craig); a Parisian policeman hunting for Ilona Tasuiev (Garai) who has been kidnapped whilst working on something pretty big for shady company 'Avalon'. Along with this, Paul Dellenbach's goons led by Dellenbach (Pryce) himself have their own agenda for her.Everything is in Renaissance, from the black and white with flashes of colour right down to the moody detective that works on both sides of the law and who comes complete with a chequered past. Does it all work? Yes, it does but only to a degree. The focus here is on Craig's character as he gets more and more involved in a shady and shifty world whilst trying to uncover the truth. He balances macho and the scenes in which he has to stick a gun in someone's face with the calmer, more involving scenes of detective work and thinking things through. But I wish I could say it was more interesting than it was on the whole.Paris as a location feels raised distinctly higher than usual for some reason. There is a lot of glass in the city. There are massive glass floors in which pedestrians are able to see what's happening on the roads beneath them; there is a large inclusion of mirrors and windows with the windows in Dellenbach's office and what's outside them feeling somewhat emphasised, whether this is the production company showing off what they can do or whether it means something more is entirely subjective. Hell, even the cells designed to hold people are transparent. I think the inclusion of all this is some sort of reference to Karas and his should-be ability to 'see through' what's around him, ie; the organisation itself and the clues he finds.You get a pleasant sort of feeling when you watch Renaissance, like when you saw Chinatown for the first time. You will want to figure it all out but some scenes might elude you first time round. Eventually, Karas will be acting on his own impulses and he'll have a trusty female ally as they blur the moral boundaries. Paris as a location is full of Brits, Yanks and Russians with an alarming amount of French people not on show – maybe they're all the pedestrians we don't get to hear speak as car chases or whatever unfold around them.Additionally to the meek comment the film may be making about Paris' multicultural status, the statement on surveillance is even hollower. Everyone can see practically anything in the city with CCTV cameras posted everywhere, even one of the more dramatic scenes in a location too obscure for technology is seen by Dellenbach whilst in the comfort of his own office. Renaissance isn't a bad film but what it has in quality of animation and meekly involving plot it lacks in overall interest and feeling. It's an impressive exercise in combining animation with narrative but it should've been better overall.

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