"Hollywood's vision of the future has been unmistakably bleak of late. Where franchises like Star Trek are consistent with their ideas of an eventual utopia, it's going to take a lot of work - and time - to get to that point. It's a dismal prophecy to those of us living through the 2020s, an era depicted thoroughly (and not too optimistically) across Star Trek's history. It's hard not to succumb to the feeling of doom as our ecological circumstances get dimmer by the day."
"Directed by Ugo Bienvenu from a script co-written with Félix de Givry, Arco tells a tale of two futures. Part-time travel story, part bittersweet coming of age, the animated film feels like a quiet revolution. While deceptively simple, it's got a lot on its mind - and though it can't articulate all of its ideas with equal fervor, it certainly gets bonus points for filtering it all through the lens of its unlikely, era-spanning friendship."
"Arco is set in the far-flung future, after a "Great Fallow" sends humanity from their homes on the ground into stilted cities in the sky. This generation has also cracked time travel: anyone over the age of 12 can don a skin-tight pink suit and a rainbow cape and travel at will into the past. It's this that our titular hero (Christian Convery), not yet 12 years old, covets most of all."
Arco is set in a far-future world where a Great Fallow forces humanity into stilted cities in the sky and time travel becomes accessible to those over twelve. Arco, a child under twelve, longs to travel while his family researches the past. The story blends part-time time travel adventure with a bittersweet coming-of-age narrative and explores friendship across eras. Visuals emphasize iridescent imagery and a mix of home-grown, lo-fi technology with advanced leaps reminiscent of classic sci-fi. The film balances deceptively simple storytelling with mature themes about ecological decline, longing, and intergenerational differences.
Read at Inverse
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