RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON
Disney’s latest animated adventure promises a whole new world
Just over a year ago, Disney’s last animated feature transported us back to Frozen II’S Arendelle. Now, with Raya And The Last Dragon, the studio’s first animated film to be heavily influenced by Southeast Asia, they will introduce us to a new fantasy world: Kumandra.
This new land is “inspired by the myriad of cultures in Southeast Asia,” says Don Hall, who co-directs alongside Blindspotting’s Carlos López Estrada. And of course the representation is reflected in the casting too. Star Wars’ Kelly Marie Tran will become the first actress of Southeast Asian descent to lead a Disney animation as Raya, a warrior princess who must find the last dragon, Sisu (Awkwafina), and save her kingdom. Both vocal performances, say the filmmakers, are dynamite; an early recording session reduced Hall and Estrada to tears. “We ended up changing a scene because of what Kelly did,” reveals Estrada. “A moment that was getting you into an important plotline became one of the most major and meaningful emotional moments in the movie.” With Awkwafina, meanwhile, the directors simply got “in the booth and just let her rip”.
Raya also aims to deliver groundbreaking action scenes. The first trailer had many likening the film to the Avatar: The Last Airbender and animated series The Legend Of Korra, but surprisingly, the movie the directors keep mentioning to Empire is John Wick. “There may have been some things that if we were to include [them] would give us an R rating for violence,” says an excited Estrada. “So just so you know, there is a cut of the movie with broken bones and stuff.” The Baba Raya is not one to be trifled with. RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON IS IN CINEMAS AND ON DISNEY+ FROM 5 MARCH
Gagarine is not your average space movie. There is an intrepid astronaut, a claustrophobic capsule and moments of high peril. Yet the film never actually leaves the ground. Set around a run-down housing project in the suburbs of Paris — named after the Soviet cosmonaut who inaugurated it in the 1960s, Yuri Gagarin — it is the story of Youri (Alséni Bathily), a resourceful,
Black 16-year-old who is fascinated by the stars above. When he learns that the gigantic building is set to be demolished, he refuses to leave, hunkering down and surviving like he’s Matt Damon in The Martian (minus the DIY fertiliser). In a case of life reflecting art, directors Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh themselves moved into Gagarin Towers to complete the shoot, just one month before it was destroyed for real.
“We were roommates with the demolition team,” recalls Trouilh. “It was amazing. But it was a challenge, for sure.” Like another sci-fi/ social realism hybrid, the London-set Attack The Block, the film finds neat ways of shooting urban architecture to make it look downright otherworldly. “We are lovers of E.T. and we watched, again, 2001 and Blade Runner,” says Liatard. “It was really fun to play with the science-fiction references. When we arrived there for the first time, we had a visual shock of this huge building that was looking like a spaceship already.”
With a streak of magical realism running through it, as Youri attempts to defy the dynamiters, all while starting a romance with a local girl (The French Dispatch’s Lyna Khoudri) and interacting with a local drug dealer, it promises to be the most unorthodox sci-fi adventure of 2021. Prepare for lift-off.
GAGARINE IS DUE IN CINEMAS FROM 16 APRIL