June 13

Day 13

Last year when the Academy Award nominations came out, there was one film among the Best Animated Feature category that I had never heard of before. It was a French film called Arco. I placed it on the list for the June Swoon 5 immediately.

I found it streaming on Hulu and watched it this morning with the English dubbed version. I typically am not a fan of the dubbed version, preferring the original voices. However, since it was an animated film, I decided it would not be as jarring as a live action dubbed film would be. Plus, the voice cast seemed very impressive with Will Farrell, Juliano Krue Valdi (who played young Michael Jackson in the biopic film, Michael), Mark Ruffalo, Natalie Portman, Andy Samberg, Flea, and America Ferrera.

According to IMDB, “In 2075, a girl witnesses a mysterious boy in a rainbow suit fall from the sky. He comes from an idyllic far future where time travel is possible. She shelters him and will do whatever it takes to help him return to his time.”

The voice of Iris, the young girl who discovered Arco, was done by Romy Fay, a talented voice actor and singer-songwriter.

The film has several underlying themes in the story that kind of take a back seat to the lost in time aspect for Arco and iris. Some of the characters do not have the depth that they required, but they do seem to work together to form a tapestry of color and creativity. The imagery of the rainbows are lovely and the friendship between Arco and Iris is sweet, even if the backdrop of the world is horrific.

The oddball trio, led by the voice of Will Farrell, feels like something right out of anime. In fact, this reminded me of a Studio Ghibli film, only considerably shorter.

Arco was an enjoyable enough film that had a good message with some amazing visuals. I can see why it received an Oscar nomination.