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Renaissance Renaissance takes place in a futuristic Paris, where giant corporation Avalon has made a business out of the obsession for longevity. Ilona Tassueiv, their most brilliant researcher is kidnapped. Avalon’s CEO and the police want her found at any cost, so they get hostage retrieval specialist Officer Bartholomew Karas on the case. He soon realises he’s not the only one looking for her and that his rivals are prepared to go to any lengths to beat him to her. Finding Ilona becomes a vital matter with serious implications for the future of mankind.
The plot introduces us to an oneiric version of Paris and its society in a very clever way, dealing with values and issues it's easy to relate to. The story is engaging from beginning to end.
Surprisingly enough, Renaissance is director Christian Volckman’s first full-length feature. Back in 1999 he produced Maaz, an award winning short film that was shot with real actors and then hand-painted frame by frame in Painter. Since then Volckman has shown a great deal of imagination and originality for storytelling.
Volckman went for a noir comic book approach, which gives his movie a visual edge similar to the one used in Sin City, except Renaissance uses no grey, only high contrasted black and white, with no intermediate colors. The technique is very impressive and beautiful; and although it takes a little getting used to, you end up forgetting it's there, mostly thanks to the use of motion capture and the clever use of lights to separate them from the background.
The creation of Renaissance started back in 1997, long before Robert Rodríguez produced his pilot for Sin City, when Marc Miance and Christian Volckman came up with the idea for a futuristic, black and white, sci-fi noir set in Paris.
After struggling to find finance in France they went abroad and successfully managed to get Disney to help financing 30% of the film. The rest of the international financing came mainly from Luxembourg and the U.K. With a generous budget of 15 million Euro and high-end motion capture techniques carried out in Luxembourg they put together this stunning and ambitious production.
And if that wasn’t enough, they also count on some great voice talents for their characters, such as soon-to-be James Bond Daniel Craig, excellent bad guy Jonathan Pryce, Hobitton’s greatest citizen Ian Holm and ‘Born Romantic’ Catherine McCormack among others.
Renaissance is an exciting, idiosyncratic film, with an absorbing and intelligent plot that keeps you hooked all the way through. Apart from an occasional problem with feeble dialogue, the characters have interesting and deep personalities that give life and colour (if you'll excuse the phrase) to the story. Christian Volckman has managed to bring black ink comic book art to life and create a world that’s both dreamlike and believable.
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