“Mune” – Review and director insight
The feature film Mune, which premiered in Italian cinemas this past February, will be released in Switzerland and France later this year with a wider worldwide release to hopefully follow. Directed by Benoît Philippon and Alexandre Heboyan, the film was part of the Annecy 2015 Feature Film Official Selection at which both attended.
International poster
In a fantastical world, Mune, a mischievous faun, is chosen to be the Guardian of the Moon: the one who brings about the night and watches over our dreams. Mune is naïve and gentle whereas his counterpart Sohone; the Guardian of the Sun; is arrogant and brash, but the two guardians must work together to keep the balance of the world. When Mune makes a mistake Sohone, thinking that he knows better, goes to sort out the problem all the while leaving the sun unguarded. It is only later to his horror Sohone notices that the sun has been stolen! Mune and Sohone must work together to journey to the underworld to bring the sun back and to restore balance to the world.
The film immediately draws you in with its unique cosmology, ecosystems and cultures. The world is very different from that of any other in any film; it really is unique. The story begins with the tale of how the first sun and moon guardians came to exist; at first the world was cold, and so the original sun guardian harpooned the nearest star and pulled it to the planet to warm it. The moon was carved from dreamstone by the first guardian to bring light and dreams to the night. The sun and the moon are pulled around the world by their temples; a hulking, heaving stone temple for the sun and a graceful, lithe temple for the moon. The two halves, sun and moon, are personified with these traits – the sun is bold and loud, the moon is quiet and sweet. This follows for everything from all the creatures who are of the day or night and the plants that thrive in the forest depending on the time of day, to the ties that hold the sun and moon to their temples; the sun with heavy chains, the moon with delicate silk strings.
The other main character who completes the trio is Glim, a delicate wax creature of the dawn and dusk; in daylight she will melt and at nighttime she will freeze. Due to this fragile nature, her father is overprotective, never wanting her to leave the house, but Glim is adventurous and wants to see the world! Her chance comes at the choosing ceremony where the old guardians pass on their mantles; once every 350 years day and night stand side-by-side to choose the new guardians and Glim is safe in the border between the two. From being so long shut away she is an expert in the cosmology and proper sun-and-moon-phases so when Mune starts to go wrong, she runs to help. From this act she gets tied up in the adventure to save the sun.
Glim is both a great character in her own right and an excellent tool in the story to hold together the two disparate characters of Mune and Sohone; they must not only work together to save the sun, but also to keep Glim safe from melting/freezing on their journey. This relationship creates a great opportunity for both of the Guardians to grow as characters during the film and she provides a certain grounding for them both as well. Sohone just wants to ‘impress the ladies’ and Mune doesn’t know what he’s doing, so her knowledge and ability to keep them on the right path adds a certain credibility to the quest – without her the two of them would be lost!
Glim
The designs of the characters in the film are fantastic, really showing each character’s nature in their designs. Nico Marlet (Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon) did some of the designs, starting with a few preliminary ideas back in 2009. Those ideas stuck though; Mune’s delicate faun-like body, Sohone’s massive sun-like chest and Glim’s wax-drip hair and skirt all came through to the final designs. They are wonderful in their variety; all of the characters clearly belong to the same universe but they hold on to a unique stylized-storybook-illustration quality even to the final CG renders. This is something that I love to see and I was delighted to see in the film some 2D animation in dream sequences and as visuals for stories. The character designs translated really well across the different media and the storybook quality came to the front of our minds in a really good way during these sequences.
The film’s directors Benoît Philippon and Alexandre Heboyan talked about the film at a press conference immediately after the screening. First of all they introduced themselves; Benoit was a live-action director who, having had the idea for Mune, decided that he wanted to make an animated feature but knew he would need help. He contacted Alexandre, an ex-grad of Gobelins who was working for DreamWorks at the time, and asked if he would like to return to France to co-direct the film. This was 2009, the two of them were in Paris and Benoit had an 100-page script and a lot of ideas.
The two described how the film was always about equilibrium. They talked about their conversations to do with redeeming the villain, how to give the film a sense of enlightenment and to end on a positive note. The snakes that corrupt good characters into evil ones are a way of externalising the ‘bad guy’ in the film; the directors were keen to create an “allegory of evil” and designed the snakes to be flat in the CG world as a way of representing this. Unsurprisingly given the theme of equilibrium in the film, Alexandre cited Miyazaki as a big influence on him and described how the idea for the colossal temples came in part from Howl’s Moving Castle; they were a kind-of homage to Miyazaki.
Mune is a beautiful film with great characters set in an interesting world and with a wonderful feel-good factor. The directors definitely achieved their goal of a film about equilibrium – in terms of both story and visuals the film achieves a harmonious balance between the dual aspects of the Sun and Moon. In terms of character, each one was well-rounded with good and bad aspects making them great to watch and empathise with on their journey. My one scruple is that I would have liked to have seen more of the world in the film; it seemed so richly designed but did not really factor into the story. Because the world in which the film is set is so unique I wanted to know more about it! As Benoit said however, they have plenty of material for a sequel so long as Mune does well upon its release, so watch it in the cinema!
For updates and upcoming release info on the film visit the film’s official Facebook page