Benoît Chieux’s gorgeously animated Sirocco and the Kingdom of the Winds feels like a breath of fresh air in the vacuum of Disney’s recent ideologically-driven, pedestrian output. Made on a fraction of these features’ budget, Sirocco is infinitely more inspired/inspiring, refusing to pander to the wee ones or shove propaganda down their throats. Influenced in equal parts by the French animation giant Mœbius, Japanese legend Hayao Miyazaki, and George Dunning’s psychedelic classic The Yellow Submarine, Chieux conjures a spectacular feat all his own.
In a magical kingdom, the forlorn storm-lord Sirocco (voiced by Terrence Scammell) creates wooden figurines to amuse himself. Failing to do that, they get banished; Sirocco consequently unleashes a terrible wrath, a “horrifying storm upon the kingdom.” In a nifty little twist, it’s then revealed that it’s all a book being written by famous author Agnès (Briauna James), the newest entry in her Sirocco and the Kingdom of the Winds series.
Sisters Juliette (Élia St-Pierre) and Carmen (Tallula Dinsmore) get dropped off at Agnès’s house for the weekend. While Agnes rests, the bored Juliette flips through a volume of Agnes’s popular series and witnesses one of the wooden figurines hop out of its pages. A game of hopscotch transports the sisters to the titular realm, turning them into humanoid cats.
Otherworldly adventures ensue. Carmen is forced to marry the mayor’s ugly son (“who smells like dirty, stinky feet”), while Juliette joins forces with Selma (Lucinda Davis), a popular opera singer and respected deity, to save Carmen. The girls must find their way back home by seeking out Sirocco and asking him for help.
“…a game of hopscotch transports the sisters, turning them into humanoid cats…”
Sirocco’s world resembles a phantasmagoric dream by Antoni Gaudí. Twisted towers pierce bulbous clouds, a variety of odd creatures (anthropomorphized birds!) populate the land, giant alligator airships float through the skies alongside jellyfish-like hot air balloons, and forest mushrooms morph into little helicopters. True moments of childlike awe abound, such as when creatures called goody-gobblers – who have a predilection for candy – attack our heroes or the visit to the edge of the world, where people’s whispers can be heard. Selma’s opera performance rivals Blue Diva’s in The Fifth Element – totally surreal and astoundingly beautiful.
Chieux complements his inventive, albeit straightforward and age-old narrative (Alice in Wonderland, anyone?) with trippy visuals that are equally suitable for young kids raised on Pixar and adults raised on René Laloux’s Fantastic Planet. Frequent moments approach transcendence. “A love between sisters is such a precious thing,” Agnes states early on, and it’s that sisterhood bond that propels the plot, which also touches upon the power of imagination and how, once written, stories take a life of their own, no longer belonging to the author. Perhaps the same fate awaits Sirocco: a hundred years from now, his story will be retold by future generations.
"…like a phantasmagoric dream by Antoni Gaudí"
