Adrift in the wind, the protagonists of Japanese director Momoko Seto’s French-produced 3D animated curio “Dandelion’s Odyssey” embark on an epic botanical journey into outer space and away from the tranquility of a planet that strongly resembles the Earth we know. After traveling through a black hole, they arrive on a different floating rock, where they face harsh elements and unexpected predators in order to resettle. The catch is that these cosmonauts landing in an undiscovered world are dandelion seeds tethered to delicate, umbrella-like structures, or pappi, comprised of numerous, fuzzy bristles.
Testament to the ingenious character design and astute writing behind the peculiar project (the screenplay is by Seto and Alain Layrac) is that the faceless heroes emote far more than one would ever expect from inanimate vegetation. Imbued with distinct physical attributes, the four seeds exhibit enough personality for audiences to understand their role in the group. One of them is heftier in size, while another appears almost frazzled, having lost most of its bristles. The other pair, including one with a bent stem or beak, resembles a romantic duo.
Each time they survive a seemingly insurmountable ordeal, the four of them hug and giggle — yes, they make sounds. Despite there being no dialogue, in Seto’s universe, plants produce noises that communicate their emotional state. While the seed itself is presumably the most important part in their taxonomy, the way they move and interact with one another and their surroundings implies that their “faces” are in the middle of the bristles. Seto and the animation team have conceived endearing figures from their limited features.
Impressive photorealistic details in certain textures, especially in the closeups of some of the creatures the roaming seeds encounter on this planet that closely resembles Earth and its flora and fauna. Early on, a frog defrosted from its sleep looks so lifelike that one might make the honest mistake of thinking it was a real animal filmed in the wild. Later, a pair of slugs that help the seed cross an arid landscape, like camels in the desert, glisten vividly.
That level of eye-deceiving detail falters in wide shots, however, some of which suffer from unflattering flat lighting that in certain instances recall computer screensavers of yore, given their colorful artificiality. Similarly, as the four seeds float across the land, the integration between them and the environment occasionally reads visually clunky in its execution, making the viewer aware of the compositing.
In watching “Dandelion’s Odyssey,” audiences might find easy comparisons to Gints Zilbalodis’ Oscar-winning “Flow,” not only because they are both entirely dialogue-free, but also because their narratives follow a similar arc. That said, Seto’s film aims for a more realistic aesthetic. “Dandelion’s Odyssey” also resembles 2016’s “Minuscule: Valley of the Lost Ants,” another French nature-based animated adventure, in which cartoonishly stylized bugs interact with natural environments.
While Seto’s debut fits within this subset of wordless, observational exploits, the inventiveness and scientific research likely involved to envision obstacles and situations for the dandelion seeds to construct a high-stakes, compelling epic merits praise, even if the visuals can be uneven at times. Seto’s vision for the foreign planet, where the seeds search for a suitable locale for life to thrive, differs from Earth in notable ways. On this new home, life evolves at incredible speed (a frog’s eggs become tadpoles with the ability to float within seconds), and there are toxic liquids that threaten the seeds’ viability for fulfilling their biological purpose, as well as a sky with multiple moons and Saturn-like rings.
After seeing the heroes fend for themselves, the resolution feels every bit as emotional as those in Don Bluth’s “The Land Before Time” or Disney’s “Dinosaur,” achieved with a fraction of the resources.
variety.com
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