When Gandahar, the final film from French animator and director René Laloux, was released in France in 1987, the science-fiction epic was praised for its vibrant visuals and imaginative story—so much so that Miramax bought the North American rights and began to prepare an English-language version for distribution on this side of the pond. Unfortunately, as was often the case when Miramax got its hands on intriguing international films back in the day, the English-language version of Gandahar (retitled Light Years) not only included a dialogue polish from Isaac Asimov (not necessarily a bad thing), but also a new musical score and numerous changes to the story, which included moving some scenes around and cutting some of the more sensual moments altogether. And while Laloux did sign off on Miramax’s version of the film, it’s nonetheless exciting that a new 4K restoration of the original French version of Gandahar, complete with Gabriel Yared’s original musical score, is now available to audiences in the United States.
Through the Door of Time
The seemingly utopian society of Gandahar finds itself suddenly under attack when an army of brutal automatons descends upon these peaceful, perpetually topless people and begins turning them into stone. So, the matriarchal council of Gandahar, led by the hilariously named Ambisextra (Anny Duperey), sends a bold young warrior named Sylvain (Pierre-Marie Escourro) on a quest to determine where the machine-men are coming from and how to defeat them.
Sylvain finds unlikely allies on his journey in the Deformed, a tribe of mutants cast out of Gandaharian society, the results of scientific experiments gone awry. He also encounters a beautiful, buxom woman named Airelle (Catherine Chevallier) with whom he falls in love and engages in some activities that earn Gandahar the label of “adult” animation (and were excised from the English-language film by Miramax).
The source of the automatons is eventually discovered to be a gigantic brain known as Metamorph (Georges Wilson), who tells Sylvain that he is more than willing to be destroyed by him…but only one thousand years in the future. Until then, Sylvain will have to sleep in stasis in a capsule at the bottom of the sea; even if he succeeds in destroying the Metamorph in the distant future, he may never be reunited with Airelle and the rest of his people in his own time.
Love, Death, and Robots
Gandahar is a collaboration between director Laloux and artist Caza, best known for his work in the French comics anthology Métal Hurlant (republished in English as Heavy Metal). Their surreal vision for the film was brought to life by the North Korean animation studio SEK; the animators were apparently shown erotic magazines smuggled into Pyongyang from Europe to understand how Laloux and Caza envisioned the voluptuous denizens of Gandahar. (If you’re at all familiar with Métal Hurlant/Heavy Metal, including the 1981 animated movie inspired by the magazine, you know the art is magnificently detailed, often quite disturbing, and always very “adult.”)
The film’s wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey story is even more difficult to follow than your average episode of Doctor Who (and the machine-men bear more than a passing resemblance to that television program’s iconic Cybermen). But honestly? That doesn’t really matter. What matters here is the world-building, which is rife with quirky, memorable visuals such as the three-eyed pink puffballs that scurry along the ground like adorable mutant Pomeranians, a vegetarian kaiju that tries to mother Sylvain and Airelle, and Gandaharian weapons that fire not bullets, but seeds, which sprout into thorny plants to entangle their enemies.
Still, of all the fantastical things one sees onscreen in Gandahar, I was particularly charmed by the Deformed, a people who are so full of disdain for their terrible present that they only speak in a strange past-future tense, using phrases like “were-will be” instead of “is”. The way the animators render them is wonderfully bizarre, with faces glaring out of torsos, legs protruding from heads, and many crucial body parts missing altogether. Yet despite their disturbing visages, the Deformed are also the most heroic characters in the film, joining forces with the much more stereotypically dashing Sylvain to save Gandahar despite having been rejected by it. Before the automatons descended upon Gandahar, it was a utopia, but an exclusive one, only for the beautiful; perhaps afterward, it could become a utopia for all.
Conclusion
Seeing this trippy, time-bending film as Laloux intended will convince you that Gandahar deserves to be just as well known among animation aficionados as Laloux’s first feature, the 1973 cult classic Fantastic Planet.
The new 4K restoration of Gandahar opens at the IFC Center in New York on August 28, 2026, with nationwide expansion to follow.
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