Taxandria (film)
| Taxandria | |
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German DVD cover (2008)
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| Directed by | Raoul Servais |
| Produced by | Iblis Films Bibo TV&Film (Berlin) Les Productions Drussart (Paris) Prascino Pictures (Amsterdam) |
| Written by | Frank Daniel Raoul Servais Alain Robbe-Grillet |
| Starring |
Armin Mueller-Stahl Elliott Spiers |
| Music by | Kim Bullard |
| Cinematography | Raoul Servais (animation) |
| Distributed by | ANAGRAM |
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Release date
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Running time
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76 minutes |
| Country | Belgium |
| Language | English |
Taxandria (1994) is a partially animated fantasy film by Raoul Servais, collaborating on a script with Frank Daniel and French writer Alain Robbe-Grillet, and starring, among others, Armin Mueller-Stahl. Being Servais's first and to date only feature film, Taxandria is notable for the use of Servais's distinct animation style, the servaisgraphie, as well as its connection to the Belgian graphic novel series Les Cités Obscures whose creator François Schuiten was the film's production designer.
Young prince Jan has been sent to a quiet coastal resort to study for his final exams, but instead he spends most of his time with his new friend, the lighthouse keeper. Jan ignores the warnings of the locals who claim that the loony lighthouse man (Armin Mueller-Stahl) eats seagulls for breakfast. Maybe the lighthouse keeper is crazy, but this does not prevent him from introducing prince Jan to the dreamland Taxandria, a phantasmagorical place devoid of time, memory, and progress. Jan learns that a reason for the lighthouse keeper's notoriety among the locals is that from time to time he hides political refugees from Taxandria from the authorities; in one scene, we see some of these fugitives arrive at the coast in a boat and taken in by the lighthouse keeper. It is however never made clear whether Taxandria really exists or if the viewer only sees what the lighthouse keeper relates to prince Jan, although once Jan is transported to Taxandria simply by looking into the lighthouse's rotating light while the keeper is away.
As a failed scientific experiment in the past accidentally removed Taxandria from its home planet (a disaster now recalled by the citizens of Taxandria as the Great ), all science, progress, and measure of time are outlawed as a consequence, whereas the Perennial Present reigns supreme. The land is ruled by two conjoined princes, always hidden behind a curtain, and their police force who insure that everyone there lives in the Perennial Present, as it is illegal to discuss the past or future. The police is headed by this world's evil counterpart of the benevolent lighthouse keeper (a double role for actor Armin Mueller-Stahl), communicating the will and orders of the mute Two Princes, making him the effective ruler of Taxandria.
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Wikipedia