Vortex, the Dawn of Sovereignty

A science fiction adventure filled with extraterrestrials, robots and spaceships.

It is the year 2047 and the world is living in a state of dictatorship, where everyone is constantly being observed and living in fear. In Paris, a teenage girl named Serena is part of a resistance team and has found a way to travel to another dimension and that is through the use of special goggles that enable the wearer to see otherworldly portals that serve as paths to these dimensions. With the help of others, she must embark on a journey and find a way to be free.

This feature wastes no time in showing the viewer that they are going to be experiencing extraordinary things throughout and it is quite a show. Right from the start the dystopian world is revealed, with vehicles of the authorities policing the streets, robot drones flying around, humanlike robots, plenty of guns and a flying gargoyle. However, things go to a whole other level when the action moves from the city and general human civilisation to space. Unsurprisingly, in space the mise-en-scene is rather different and there are spaceships, robots and all sorts of aliens, some of which look human while others look like insects. The audience follows Serena as she travels and meets a variety of characters.

Michel Rousseau worked on this movie with his family. Apart from directing and writing, Michel also did voice acting for many of the characters and worked on the clothing, music and special effects. The result is quite rewarding to the eyes (and ears).

The extraterrestrials and robots are all animated and so is most of the environment and vehicles. The 3D animation looks great and thanks to a great deal of imagination and creativity, the filmmakers created a world that will most likely make people think of Star Wars. There are plenty of weird characters to encounter, including an entity with a human form and a face filled with tentacles and a woman with hair that magically changes shape and colour. Although the special effects do not look very realistic, they are entertaining to watch and the movie does an OK job in mixing live action with animation. Sometimes, watching the animated scenes is like watching cutscenes from a video game.

The music is one of the film's strongest aspects. It sounds dynamic and magical and it adds significant value to the scenes, creating an adventurous atmosphere. The cinematography looks beautiful and the editing makes effective use of the wipe technique.

Generally, the acting is not very good and during the last twenty five minutes or so the film runs out of steam. The plot is fine, however the elements that make this sci-fi appealing belong primarily in the mise-en-scene, they are the surroundings, the animation and most of all the extraordinary characters. And as mentioned previously, there is the fantastic score.

A small number of individuals collaborated in order to make this feature a reality and their efforts resulted in a movie that will most likely appeal to fans of science fiction. The story is about freedom, about being who one wants to be and Cerise Rousseau leads the film well as a character who is pursuing such goals.