A Cosmic Quest Told Without Saying a Word

Read Time:4 Minute, 39 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
Dandelion’s Odyssey (Planètes)
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Genre: Adventure, Animation
Year Released: 2025
Runtime: 1h 15m
Director(s): Momoko Seto
Writer(s): Mariette Désert, Alain Layrac, Momoko Seto
Where to Watch: shown at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival

RAVING REVIEW: Not every project needs 70-plus minutes to make its point. Some concepts are better served with brevity, clarity, and a tighter grip on their emotional trajectory. That’s what came to mind while watching DANDELION’S ODYSSEY. This feature carries a beautiful message about rebirth, resilience, and environmental recovery, but one that too often feels stretched thin and tonally uneven. Some pieces here work on a poetic level, but the overall structure feels more experimental than fully realized.

The setup is simple but promising. Four drifting “seeds,” remnants from a planet destroyed by disaster, travel through unfamiliar terrain hoping to find a place to grow: no dialogue, no narration—just movement, sound, and a heavy reliance on atmosphere. The minimalist approach is bold and intriguing, especially as it invites viewers to pay attention to the visual language and rhythm rather than traditional storytelling cues.

What starts as meditative quickly begins to drag. The film's pacing is a slow burn to say the least, and without any narrative markers or emotional peaks to punctuate the experience, it starts to feel repetitive. The message about seeking belonging and restoring life is meaningful, but gets lost in long stretches of near-stasis. Several scenes seem designed to be hypnotic or immersive, but instead come across as filler moments that could have been distilled into something tighter and more emotionally impactful in a short format.

Another issue that surfaces is the visual tone. While the decision to shoot real-life elements like moss, mold, and insects with time-lapse photography is a clever way to heighten realism, some of the animated sequences feel awkward or strangely artificial. A few scenes have an uncanny quality, whether due to the animation style, digital integration, or AI tools (I’m not suggesting AI was used, but something seemed off.) It’s hard to put a finger on, but certain movements just feel… Not stylized, not natural—something in between that disrupts the tone instead of supporting it.

This uncanny valley sensation clashes with the story’s organic message. When the film leans into the authentic, real locations, natural soundscapes, and slower shots of organisms behaving as they do in the wild, it captures something genuine and occasionally even moving. But the illusion shatters every time the film pivots to more abstract or overly stylized animations. It’s not that stylization is inherently a problem, but the inconsistency makes it harder to stay grounded in the world being built.

To its credit, the sound design is one of the stronger aspects. Silence is used effectively, and ambient noise—squeaks, vibrations, and distant pulses—helps to create tension and mood without speech. Paired with a restrained and thoughtful score, the audio helps guide the experience even when the visuals stagger. It’s clear that much intention went into how the film sounds, and attention pays off in many sequences.

One way this project could have landed stronger would have been to condense its ideas into a shorter runtime. It might have resonated more cleanly as a short film or a 30-minute visual essay. The artistry could shine, the “characters” could communicate, and the themes could remain intact, without the stretches that feel like they’re trying to fill time rather than develop anything new. It’s not that the story doesn’t deserve to be told; the delivery could have used more restraint.

Ultimately, DANDELION’S ODYSSEY feels like a feature built around a short film idea. Its themes are worth exploring, and its artistic vision is clear in moments, but the overall result is uneven. There’s nothing wrong with quiet, atmospheric storytelling. But it becomes harder to stay emotionally engaged when that atmosphere starts to feel disconnected from development or thematic clarity. It’s not a film without merit—just one that overreaches, lingers too long, and struggles to maintain its initial sense of wonder. It wants to bloom, but it needs more help.

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[photo courtesy of INDIE SALES, MIYU PRODUCTIONS, ECCE FILMS, UMEDIA, ARTE FRANCE CINÉMA, CNRS, REEPOST, GEBEKA FILMS]

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