Arco – Film Review
by Hugh Maguire

Directors – Ugo Bienvenu, Gilles Cazaux
Writers  Ugo Bienvenu, Félix de Givry
Stars – Margot Ringard Oldra, Oscar Tresanini, Nathanaël Perrot

Transferring the viewer to a wondrous, magical distant land rich with colour and natural abundance, Arco reassuringly reminds us that some things in this life will never change. Starting off in some future idyllic age in the future, we see that humans have moved into protective environments set on platforms which project skywards through the marvels of engineering. Nature is flourishing, fruit trees are bountiful, and despite the technology, there are, reassuringly, books on shelves! Parents seem to have time to engage with their children. Again, through technology, the adults in the room have the ability to travel back in time.  Arco, the eponymous hero, is prevented from doing so as he is too young, and he is jealous of his big sister, who has just been off with dad collecting life forms from the age of the dinosaurs. But stealing his big sister’s ‘magic’ rainbow cape and special gemstone, he can travel back through centuries, falling back to earth in our time, admittedly, some fifty years from now (2075).  It is now a world where climate change is wreaking greater havoc, where storms and forest fires are a regular occurrence.  Parenting is farmed out to robots.  Arco befriends a lonely girl of the same age, and together they try to facilitate his return to his future home, even though she wishes for him to remain in her time.

The core narrative is simple – a jump back in time and an idyllic future.  It could be any number of fairy tales, but around this there is a wondrous array of very clever references to all sorts of narratives and tales from mythology and popular culture, wittingly and perhaps unwittingly.  This makes for very rewarding viewing – like a posh version of The Simpsons, as the film similarly caters for children and adults alike. There are hints of Saint- Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince (1943), Peter Weir’s The Truman Show (1998) and stock pantomime characters recalling commedia dell’arte or the buffoon element in Much Ado About Nothing.  And for Irish viewers, there is a touch of Oisín and Niamh, the Tuatha Dé Danann and Tír nan Óg. The future idyllic world recalls James Hilton’s Lost Horizon (1933) and its mythical land of Shangri-La. Sheltering from a firestorm in a deep cave, the robot, Mikki, evokes the Palaeolithic cave painters of  Chauvet Pont d’Arc.

With a dazzling array of graphic work, cultural references, comedy and emotion, the viewer is presented with a narrative that emphasises eternal verities of love, affection, the bond of families and loved ones.  It shows that despite the wonders of technology and the stresses of the environment, certain emotions never change across thousands of years. It is never mawkish, but it is hugely rewarding.