A strain of science fiction has emerged lately, especially in Europe and more specifically France, that’s very sparing with visual effects and more dependent on tricks involving makeup and sets, sprinkled with a bit of body horror, à la David Cronenberg. French director Thomas Cailley’s The Animal Kingdom, which debuted in Cannes and played at the London film festival but has yet to open in the UK, is very much in this style, with genetically mutated people turning into animal-human hybrids – lizards, birds, all manner of mammals – and leaving the civilised world behind.
Tropic, a film directed by Édouard Salier, who has a horror feature, Cabeza Madre, under his belt, and lots of shorts and music videos – is in a similar vein. It outlines a near future where humanity has accepted that Earth is a lost cause – not just because of climate catastrophe but also because the sun will engulf it in about 5bn years’ time, so it’s best to start planning ahead. To that end, school-age youngsters are training to be astronauts on fiercely competitive and academically challenging courses. Non-identical twin brothers Tristán (Louis Peres) and Lázaro (Pablo Cobo) are both enrolled and hope to get chosen to go up to space together on a so-called eternity voyage. Tristán is stronger, and more confident than his brother; their Spanish, working-class single mother Mayra (Marta Nieto) jokes that when twins are born, one comes out the arse, and it’s a family tradition that Lázaro – the shy one who can’t hold his breath as long underwater and hasn’t yet had a girlfriend – is that one.
