The “Christmas Disney” does not deserve. Avalonia, the strange journey by Don Hall and Qui Nguyen, available Friday on Disney+, lives up to its title. The journey undertaken by a handful of adventurers to save the Earth, threatened by a plant-destroying virus, takes them into a universe as original as it is rich in surprises.
“You don’t find out the nature of where they are until quite late,” Don Hall told 20 minutes. But the spectator has all the keys in hand to guess it. This turns out to be rigorously correct: as with many puzzles, the clues seem obvious once the solution has been given. The first magical images revealed at the Annecy Festival have been brilliantly developed into a universe of dazzling visual richness.
A crunchy creature
“The animators were asked to let their imaginations run wild, both for the sets and for the creatures that inhabit Avalonia,” insists Who Nguyen. Among the most astonishing successes of the film, we find Splat, a blue creature, so expressive that we quickly forget that she is not gifted with speech. “A character like Splat is pure happiness for anyone working in animation, insists Don Hall. You have to give it life and make it endearing by starting from a ball of blue matter. This is the essence of our profession. » Splat comes to join the carpet of Aladdin and Flubber to the pantheon of bizarre, crunchy and surprisingly alive creatures that Disney studios have made a specialty of.
“We played the card of originality for the world that the heroes discover,” says Qui Nguyen. But we have anchored their relationship at the heart of a family setting in which many spectators will no doubt be able to recognize themselves. The filial relationships are at the center of a story that does not hesitate to reserve surprises in this area as in that of an ecological message to which the directors are very attached.
“You can find food for thought on many subjects in Avalonia or simply let yourself be carried away by the story,” admits Don Hall. Whatever their choice, the spectator will spend an exotic moment where suspense, poetry, humor and tenderness are on the program. The qualities ofAvalonia, The Strange Journey would have been worthy of being discovered indoors.