Planètes
Director: Momoko Seto
Writer: Momoko Seto, Mariette Désert, Alain Layrac
Part of: SLASH Filmfestival
Seen on: 20.9.2025

Content Note: fatmisia

Plot:
When earth is destroyed, a head full of dandelion seeds gets blown into space. Four of the seeds are taken on a grand adventure across space and into new life.

Dandelion’s Odyssey is an intriguing mix of CGI, animation and actual documentary footage of the smallest of creatures – like dandelion seeds. It tells a sweet and often surprisingly touching story of survival. I wouldn’t have needed more of it (maybe even slightly less), but I enjoyed it.

I really didn’t have the possibility of a post-apocalyptic film starring dandelion seeds on any radar before the festival. I couldn’t have imagined it existed. But exist it does, and it is certainly something special. The visual style is beguiling and creative, showing us a lot of what is happening just around us without us ever realizing it. You don’t have to be especially interested in bugs to find this fascinating.

Even more impressive, though, is the fact that Momoko Seto manages to introduce us to dandelion seeds that are not only visually distinct from one another, but also have different personalities, making it surprisingly easy to not only tell them apart but root for them and watch their relationships develop.

Unfortunately said characterization also includes a fat dandelion, if you will – one whose seed pod is way bigger than the others. That is not a problem per se, but it becomes a running gag pretty quickly that this seed just can’t move as well as the others and falls over a lot and might be a little slower. In short, it becomes a fat joke. I really wasn’t prepared for that and I pretty much hated it.

I was also irritated by the fact that the seeds travel to another planet – only to encounter creatures from Earth all the time. How did they get there? It probably wouldn’t have hurt the film if they had just stayed on Earth, but I was able to tune that out to follow the story. And while the film has a couple of lengths here and there, it always finds its way back to an emotionally satisfying, often very warm tale of survival that I really liked watching.

Summarizing: something different worth seeing.