78th Cannes Film Festival: “Dandelion’s Odyssey” Review

Dandelion’s Odyssey, directed by Momoko Seto, is an imaginative and visually striking film that goes beyond language and species to tell its story. Combining elements of nature documentary, animation, and abstract art, it remains grounded in emotion and wonder. The film follows four dandelion seeds as they travel through strange, hostile yet beautiful landscapes, reflecting on what it means to belong somewhere, or nowhere.

Seto’s personal history (a childhood spent between Japan and a French school in Tokyo and a young adulthood shaped by feelings of rootlessness) forms the emotional bedrock of the film. Her sensitivity to the idea of “putting down roots,” literally and metaphorically, is clear in every scene. The “characters” in Dandelion’s Odyssey, the dandelion seeds, are given rich personalities without uttering a single word. Through animation based on the movement studies of actors, dancers, and even circus performers, the seeds become expressive beings.

Dandelion’s Odyssey is truly groundbreaking with its astonishing visual world. Shot over 260 days with 17 cameras, the film uses macro photography, time-lapse, and extreme close-ups to transform living organisms: moss, mould, fungi, insects, into otherworldly landscapes. Mushrooms rise like ancient cities; ferns unfurl like awakening creatures; spores drift like alien spacecraft. The ordinary becomes sublime. By bending time and scale, Seto reimagines nature as both subject and stage, hero and antagonist.

The soundscape, designed by Oscar-winner Nicolas Becker (Sound of Metal) and composer Quentin Sirjacq, is as complex as the imagery. Without dialogue or narration, the film relies on an immersive interplay of sounds and music to express feelings and move the story along. Each “planet” the seeds pass through has its own acoustic fingerprint – shakuhachi flutes and baroque harmonies for the desert, gamelan and strings for the cosmic sequences. At times playful, at others hauntingly melancholic, the score guides your emotions through this surreal ecological odyssey.

Dandelion’s Odyssey is both a technical achievement and an artistic experiment; it’s also a thoughtful and reflective film. Underneath its visuals, it delivers a powerful message about climate change, environmental damage, and how people are losing their connection with nature. The film quietly asks: What happens when the land we depend on is no longer safe or supportive? What do we become when we’re cut off from the place we come from?

And yet, there is hope. The achenes, fragile as they are, persist. They adapt. They float, fall, rise again. Seto offers us not despair, but a quiet affirmation of life’s tenacity. Nature is not passive, nor is it solely male-coded; it is feminine and fiercely alive.

In an era filled with digital noise and formulaic storytelling, Dandelion’s Odyssey dares to speak in the language of silence, to tell a story with spores, shadows, and the slow blooming of life. It is fair to say that Seto’s newest film is a rare and absolutely ravishing work of art.

Rating:

Written by Maggie Gogler

_{View of the Arts is an online publication dedicated to films, music, and the arts, with a strong focus on the Asian entertainment industry. With rich content already available to our readers, we aim to expand our reach and grow alongside our audience by delving deeper into emerging platforms such as K-pop and Asian music more broadly. At the same time, we remain committed to exploring the vibrant and ever-evolving global landscape of film, music, and the arts, celebrating the immense talent and creativity that define these industries worldwide.}