Kaena: La prophétie (2003)

User Rating:

6.1/10   

Directors:

Chris Delaporte
Pascal Pinon

Writers:

Patrick Daher (story)
Chris Delaporte (screenplay)
(more)

Release Date:

4 June 2003 (France)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Animation | Family | Fantasy | Sci-Fi

Plot:

AXIS, a gigantic coiling plant, stretches high above the clouds... At its center is a village whose...

Plot Keywords:

CGI Film | Bizarre | 3D Animation | Computer Animation | Fantasy

Awards:

1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

Cécile De France	...	Kaena (voice: French version)
Michael Lonsdale	...	Opaz (voice: French version)
Victoria Abril	...	La reine (voice: French version)
François Siener	...	Voxem (voice: French version)
Jean-Michel Farcy	...	Assad (voice: French version)
Raymond Aquaviva	...	Gommy (voice: French version)
Jean Piat	...	Le grand prêtre (voice: French version)
Kirsten Dunst	...	Kaena (voice: English version)
Richard Harris	...	Opaz (voice: English version)
Anjelica Huston	...	Queen of the Selenites (voice: English version)
Keith David	...	Voxem (voice: English version)
Michael McShane	...	Assad (voice: English version)
Greg Proops	...	Gommy (voice: English version)
Tom Kenny	...	Zehos (voice: English version)
Tara Strong	...	Essy (voice: English version)
Dwight Schultz	...	Ilpo (voice: English version)
Gary Martin	...	The Priest (voice: English version)
John Di Maggio	...	Enode (voice: English version)
Ciara Janson	...	Kamou / Roya (voice: English version)
William Attenborough	...	Sambo (voice: English version)
Jennifer Darling	...	Reya (voice: English version)
Cornell John	...	Demok (voice: English version)

Directed by
Chris Delaporte
Pascal Pinon

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Patrick Daher		story
Chris Delaporte		screenplay
Chris Delaporte		story
Tarik Hamdine		screenplay
Benjamin Legrand		dialogue
Kenneth Oppel		screenplay collaboration

Original Music by
Farid Russlan

Film Editing by
Bénédicte Brunet

Production Management
Marie-Cecile Dahan	....	production supervisor
Odile Pérrin	....	production manager

Sound Department
Tom D. Backman	....	sound editor
Evan T. Chen	....	sound editor
Jake Eberle	....	sound designer
Jake Eberle	....	sound effects editor
Eric Justen	....	additional sound re-recording mixer
Eric Lewis	....	assistant dialogue recording engineer
Jonathan Miller	....	supervising sound editor
Shelley Roden	....	foley artist
Ernie Sheesley	....	dialogue recordist
Jonathan Wales	....	sound re-recording mixer
Elliot Anders	....	adr editor (uncredited)
Ken Galvin	....	dialogue recordist (uncredited)

Special Effects by
Gamiette Rémi	....	character animator

Visual Effects by
Harry Bardak	....	compositing supervisor
Erwann Baudet	....	digital effects artist
Katrina Conwright	....	lead character animator
Frédéric Côté	....	character animator
Marc Cote	....	motion capture lead engineer
Michael Cozens	....	character animator
David Danesi	....	visual effects supervisor
Lapierre Franck-Noel	....	lighting and compositing artist
Brent Paul George	....	lead character animator
Phillip Giles	....	animation director
Marc-André Guindon	....	motion capture director
Laurent Herveic	....	lighting and compositing
Steven Hornby	....	character animator
Michel Kinfoussia	....	visual effects supervisor
Jason Kreller	....	character animator
Yannick Leblanc	....	technical director animation
Franck Malmin	....	technical director
Sonia Pronovost	....	animator
Pascal Raimbault	....	digital models supervisor
Richard Raimbault	....	lead modeller
Nicolas Seck	....	CG animator: MPC
Stéphane Soubiran	....	visual effects
Anthony Sparapani	....	senior animator
Patrick Tasse	....	junior animator
Philippe Zerounian	....	character animator

Animation Department
Michael Brunet	....	animator
Michael Douaud	....	layout artist
Marco Foglia	....	animator
Benoît Gagné	....	animator
Emilio Ghorayeb	....	animator
Jean Marc Ky	....	animator
Andrew Ogawa	....	animator
Cory Rogers	....	animator (uncredited)

Casting Department
Jack Fletcher	....	casting: English voices

Music Department
Bruno Mercere	....	music mixer
James Shearman	....	orchestrator
Youki Yamamoto	....	assistant orchestrator

Other crew
Sofia Ashen	....	adr loop group
Richard Cote	....	production assistant
Jack Fletcher	....	voice director: English voices
Stefan Ashton Frank	....	adr loop group
Eric Meyers	....	adr loop group
Regina Reagan	....	adr loop group
Eric Vallee	....	production coordinator

Production Companies

• Chaman Productions
• Studio Canal
• TVA International

Distributors

• Bac Films (2004) (France) (theatrical)
• Studio Canal (2004) (France) (DVD) (special edition)
• Cathay-Keris Films (2004) (Singapore) (theatrical)
• Cinergia (Ukraine)
• Europa Filmes (2006) (Brazil) (DVD)
• GAGA Communications (Japan) (theatrical)
• Media Cooperation One (MC-One) (2006) (Germany) (DVD)
• Prooptiki Video (Greece) (DVD)
• Samuel Goldwyn Films (2004) (USA)
• United King Films (Israel)
• Universal Pictures Finland Oy (2008) (Finland) (DVD)

Special Effects

• Realities Studio

Other Companies

• SIF309 Film & Music Productions  film score recording
• Screen Music Studios (SMS)  dialogue recording facilities
• Sonic Magic  sound post-production

Also Known As:

Axis (USA) (working title)
Gaïna (France) (working title)
Kaena: The Prophecy (USA)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for sensuality and some frightening images.

Runtime:

85 min

Country:

France | Canada

Language:

English | French

Color:

Color

Certification:

Canada:PG (Ontario) | Germany:12 | France:U | USA:PG-13 | Singapore:PG

Company:

Chaman Productions

Trivia:

Was made using the same computer programming as the movie sequences in video games.

Classic plot, beautifully rendered

Presented as the first full-length 3D-generated animated movie from France, Kaena was first an idea for a video game that was expanded into a `real' movie. A fantasy/sci-fi tale, it takes place on of flying forest made of gigantic vines inhabited by a tribe of humans, who, in order to appease their gods, must harvest the sap of the vines. Trouble is, the harvest is no longer what it was and the gods are somewhat angry. A young woman, Kaena, who looks like a cross between Lara Croft and Princess Mononoke, understands that the gods are up to no good, and fights them with the help of unexpected allies and funny sidekicks. The plot follows the well-used pattern where a young misfit must save the world from dark forces, battle monsters and unearth world-shattering secrets, and the script borrows from many previous ones (fans of French sci-fi comics will recognise bits of the `Adventures of Alef-Thau', written in the 80s by Alexandro Jodorowski, who is also credited on Kaena). The script is also certainly quite European in spirit, with more overt sexuality and a indictment of religion probably unimaginable in a mainstream US-made cartoon.

While a little lacking in plot, Kaena mostly succeeds as pure eye-candy. Since the representation of realistic humans is still out of reach for computer graphics (Cf. the mixed results in Final Fantasy), the authors have chosen a half-comic-book style (like in Ice Age) which is quite pleasant, at least if you like people with really big eyes. The movie creatures are quite nice, particularly the talkative worms with their tired faces and their walking and flying devices. But it's the sets which are the most beautiful, with a particular attention to lighting, colouring and texturing: many scenes are shot in a golden light, slightly overexposed with lens flares and other atmospheric effects. The mixture of quasi-photorealism and more traditional CG style works quite well. The vine forest, the village and the spaceship scenes are exceptionally rendered, and among the most beautiful seen in a CG-rendered movie so far. The world of the gods, by contrast, has a dark, liquid and sticky feel (the gods themselves are liquid, gigeresque creatures) with bright shining reflections, and is truly original. Sometimes, there's a little too much of everything, as if the movie was a demo for CG effects (hair, particle systems, volumetrics.), not unlike the first Technicolor movies where everything had to be brightly coloured. But that doesn't detract from the WOW! Factor of the movie.

All in all, Kaena is a very recommendable movie, and one can hope that the authors will follow with a bolder script.