Animal Kingdom director reveals the most fascinating sci-fi film of the year

This interview with Animal Kingdom director Thomas Cailley was originally published in conjunction with the film’s U.S. theatrical release. It has been updated and republished for the film’s Hulu debut.

In the French science fiction film The animal kingdomThe world is changing, and people are changing with it. A mutation begins to transform humans into animal hybrids, creating a variety of bird-people, insect-people, mammal-people, and many other new species. At the center of this upheaval is a divided family: the mother, in the midst of the mutation, has disappeared from a medical transport, leaving the father and son desperately searching for her. The fantastical film is now available for digital rental and streaming on Hulu, after originally screening at Cannes and other film festivals in 2023.

The design of the creature in The animal kingdom is a perfect example of how practical and digital effects can work in harmony to enhance each other, creating an effect that neither can achieve alone. Director Thomas Cailley and his team used a mix of various practical effects (suits, makeup, animatronics) and digital effects to create some of the most evocative and original designs in years, such as a scaly pangolin-human or a chameleon-human that can blend into its surroundings.

But the heart of the film is the moving relationship between father and son. Romain Duris (Aramis in the latest French blockbuster adaptation of The three Musketeers) is incredibly moving in its portrayal of the father, François, who brings out his anguish over losing his beloved family, and the deep care he has for them, regardless of the circumstances. Paul Kircher’s performance as his son, Émile, is transcendent, especially as the teenager begins to undergo some unexpected changes, evolving every element of his physical performance while still retaining the moody soul of a troubled teenager. Together, they bring a complex relationship to life in a hectic world.

Fascinating and endlessly discussable, especially in the questions it raises about humanity and how we deal with people who are different from us, The animal kingdom depicts its changing world with great care. The presence of these hybrid humans elicits a range of responses from the people in the film — sympathy, fear, anger, disgust. Some people are deeply concerned about how the hybrids are being treated and advocate for coexistence, while others form militias and advocate for violence. It all adds up to a very grounded depiction of how our society responds to people who are different, in all their shades.

The film’s central premise is one that invites many different allegorical readings: Is it about race? Is it about disability? Is it about gender? Is it about xenophobia? Cailley told Polygon that he appreciates the wide range of interpretations in the audience response so far, but the director maintains there is no right answer. It all comes together for one of the most intriguing films of the year, and one of the best original works of science fiction in recent memory. Ahead of its release, Polygon spoke with Cailley about the film’s complicated morality, the gorgeous effects, and his favorite creature designs with the help of translator Nicholas Elliot.

Polygon: How did the idea for this project come about and how did you get involved?

Thomas Cailley: Originally, I wanted to tell a father-son story, and I wanted there to be a fantasy element to it, something that would change the story, take it somewhere else. And by chance, I met a young woman (Pauline Munier) who was a screenwriter and was still in school, actually, for screenwriting at the time. And she had written a story about animal-human hybridization, and I thought it was really interesting. And so we started working on a project together. That was in 2019, four years ago.

What was your relationship with the science fiction genre before making this film?

Well, my first movie (Love at first fight) gradually slides into a kind of sci-fi or anticipatory element. It’s the story of a young woman who is convinced, who is convinced that the world is going to end, and at the end of the film it actually does. And that’s something that we had to show, we had to stage. It wasn’t originally planned when I started writing my first feature film. And in doing it, I discovered the joy of coming up with these kinds of images. And so that’s something that I wanted to return to with another film, to return to that freedom that you get when you work with genres, which allows you to go deeper into the belief in characters.

Image: Release magnet

What was your philosophy and approach when designing the creatures in the film?

The concept of the mutation is that it starts with the human body moving to something else, to another frontier, a new horizon, and we tried to keep it realistic and organic. In most movies that deal with mutation, there’s something magical or accelerated about the mutation — you transform because there’s a full moon outside, or you put on a costume and you’re half human, half animal. Here we wanted something much more progressive that would be like a disease in a way, and that was the hardest thing to do.

The first meetings we had to prepare the film, it was really scary that it seemed like we had to do 100% CGI, 100% digital effects, and I absolutely did not want that. So what we tried to do was combine every type of effect that was possible. In most of the scenes you have real actors, there is a real body in front of the camera the whole time. And we worked really hard on things with make-up, prosthetics, animatronics, robots. And if we really couldn’t do it, we used CGI. So there is a hybridization of technology that you see in every shot of the film. The cocktail that we use is always different. And what is really interesting about this cocktail is first of all that it is more realistic, there is no green screen, no motion capture; and secondly, because the mix of technologies is always different, the eye of the viewer never has a chance to get used to what he or she is seeing and to understand what is happening, in terms of technology.

To wrap that up, since you asked about the philosophy, I started working with a comic book writer. And then I worked with people who are called character designers. When I started writing at the very beginning, the idea was that the mutation from humans to animals was as we see it in nature, but the further I got into the shooting and the more I met the actors who would play these characters, the more interesting it would be if each character imagined the character that he or she would embody. And so we went towards these atypical original forms that are not exactly what we find in nature. And so it is not so much a return to nature as a discovery of a new humanity, of a new frontier in evolution.

That’s really interesting, especially the relationship between the hybridization of technologies and the hybridization of species in the film. Are there any creature designs that you particularly like? For me, maybe the most striking shot in the film is the person who has reptilian skin and you see their shoulder blades moving as they slither through the grass.

It’s interesting that you mentioned the reptile, because that’s also one of my favorite creatures. And it’s one that’s very representative of our work. You know, this is a character that you never see in its entirety. But we do have that shot of his back. And the idea for his back came from a contemporary dancer that I discovered who has really interesting bone or skeletal structure and musculature. And when this dancer lies down flat on the floor, his shoulder blades literally raise up, which creates a really interesting relief on his back, which is disturbing because it’s human, but it’s also something else. So in the case of this actor who played the reptile, we literally put a new skin on his back and asked him to move forward like a reptile. And what you see of his back and his skeletal structure is really part human and part animal. I also really liked the octopus woman in the grocery store, who is also a dancer, by the way.

Image: Release magnet

In terms of working with the actors to design the creatures, were there any “Eureka!” moments? moments that felt like, Yes, this person really understood what I wanted here?

There was a moment in the film. It’s the moment when François, Emil’s father, is fighting a creature behind the restaurant. It’s the human-walrus creature. And that fight is interrupted by François’ colleague. She hits the creature with a canoe paddle. And in that moment, the creature and the woman exchange glances. And it was such a beautiful moment, I thought. The actor in the costume couldn’t see anything at all, because of the costume. But he had understood something of the physical movement that was required and time really stood still. There’s a combination in that moment that is very poetic of the actress’ understanding of the scene, the blind actor’s understanding of the scene, and what three or four people who are controlling the animatronics, because there are about 1,000 motors in the head of that creature, what they’re doing, and that makes this fight scene turn into a meeting of two creatures. And that moment really blew me away because I felt a whole team coming together and really aligning.

There are many themes in the film that you can read as allegory. Were there any specific contemporary issues that you were thinking about?

Of course, there is a very universal subject in the film, which is the parent-child relationship and the transmission or passing on of things across two generations. That is the deep subject of the film, what it means to leave something to someone: François, who passes on a world to his son Emil. And that is a question that is very meaningful to me, because I am a relatively recent father, and I find this question of what a parent passes on to his or her children really mysterious. In making this film, we tried very hard not to limit the metaphor. I think the interesting thing about fantasy, when it works, is that everyone can interpret it however they want.

So I was very happy when we started showing this film to the public, to see that many people saw different metaphors in the film. Some people talked to me about the metaphor of difference, how we accept difference. Some people talked to me about the migrant crisis in Europe today. Some people talked to me about psychiatry, the situation for psychiatry, in France and in Europe. Some people talked to me about people who are racialized, which is the French term for having a non-centralized racial identity. And others talked to me about gender transition. I think the power of fantasy, when it works, is that not everything is solved. You leave space for the spectator.

The animal kingdom is streaming on Hulu and available for digital rental or purchase at Amazon, Vuduand similar platforms.