STACK #157 Nov 2017

FEATURE DVD&BD

LA FEMME NIKITA (1990) A teenage criminal (Anne Parillaud) is trained as a top secret assassin in Besson’s classic espionage thriller, which spawned a US remake and TV series.

with the combined output of Weta Digital, ILM and numerous other VFX wizards working overtime to bring Besson’s space opera to life. Then there is the myriad of bizarre alien species, including mind-sucking jellyfish, lethal butterflies, huge aquatic Bromosaurs, and Rihanna as a

Besson took the unique approach of selecting and isolating six artists from around the world for a year, collaborating with them on the designs via Skype. “They didn’t have the script and I wanted to protect their creativity,” he explains. “We explored for a year – every dimension, every

alien fits with this one… I tried to make the same images you have in Manhattan, where there is the white guy in the tie in Wall Street, the Indian with the turban in a cab, the Chinese guy in Chinatown, the Jewish area... everything works together in a way. They are all New Yorkers, and it works. Even if you don’t explain everything, when you watch all of them, you believe it. “What was also very interesting was these aliens are kind. They want to share their knowledge and their culture, they are not the ‘foreign guy’ we have to destroy. They’re not the villain – the villain, as usual, is us.”

LEON: THE PROFESSIONAL (1994) The screen debut of 12-year-old Natalie Portman, as the pint-sized protégé to cool hitman Jean Reno. A slick and stylish action-thriller with dramatic depth.

It’s not the typical big Hollywood film; it’s totally different, not even in the same territory

shape-shifting glam cabaret singer. Imagine the Mos Eisley and cantina scene from  Star Wars  taken to the nth degree and you’ll have some idea of the sheer scope of this universe. In conceptualising the alien inhabitants of Alpha station,

territory in the universe, every kind of species. Lots of research on microscopic worlds, the sea world… everything. “And they came back with 6,000 drawings; the material was absolutely amazing. As a director I had to build the puzzle – this

THE FIFTH ELEMENT (1997) Besson reinvented the sci-fi blockbuster with European finesse, knockout production design, and Jean Paul Gaultier threads.

LUCY (2014) Drug mule Scarlett

Johansson is transformed into an omnipotent superbeing in Besson’s bonkers mash-up of La Femme Nikita and Limitless .

• Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is out on Nov 22

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