Is Arco, the French animated science fiction film directed by Ugo Bienvenu, simply a critique of our surveillance society, an eco-utopian plea or a tribute to Studio Ghibli and Les Humanoïdes Associés?
Arco is a child from the distant future who is dressed in a rainbow-coloured suit. He accidentally travels back in time and ends up in a forest in 2075, where he loses consciousness. Three strange men wearing iridescent glasses seem to have information about the child and are actively searching for him. Meanwhile, Arco is rescued by Iris, a girl his own age. She lives in a house with a baby and a domestic robot. Her holographic parents often work in another city. Iris is hosting Arco to protect him from technological surveillance.
A trio of adult adventurers and muses of the rock era with unapologetically futuristic kitsch and childlike souls serve as the common thread between time travels.
The film Arco skilfully reveals its plot as the heroine, who lives in the year 2075, becomes increasingly disconnected from the present while her love for a boy from the end of the third millennium grows. The baby represents an unknown future. His cries and laughter are like divine omens.
In Arco ‘Smart’ Potemkin cities are ill-prepared for climate threats.
Screenwriters Ugo Bienvenu and Félix de Givry fill the film with mocking references to the pantomime civilisation of rigid robots, the theory of collapse in successive layers, and humanity’s complacency in Potemkin ‘smart’ cities that are ill-prepared for climate threats.
The work of animation director Adam Sillard and his team has a power and magnetism that draws us into the atmosphere, with its colours, play of light and shadow, appearances of children and intense, candid gazes. Arnaud Toulon’s soundtrack accompanies the film with finesse and sophistication.
The collapse of a civilisation that is stuck in its old ways of political control is not inevitable. Children with extraordinary solidarity and awareness of human finitude, and a robot full of empathy, will forge a vital connection between eras.
Released in 2025
Running time: 82 minutes
Photo credits © Remembers, MountainA, France 3 Cinéma
