I am so glad that The Little Prince happened to me in the form of this movie. I didn’t have a clue, a story so colossal hid all this time from me. Le Petit Prince, the original product of the extraordinary brain of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, was published in the year 1943. It has found numerous collaborations over the years, all beautiful contributions, hands down!
The Little Prince Movie Overview
One of the best-selling books ever published, Le Petit Prince’s story is more of a parable that criticizes human nature with veracious permeable elements around. It chooses the character of a little lad with a profound brain whose words will open the insensible vaults of your brain.
Does all of it using a rare flair with the help of allusions directing towards mundane pointless characters that surround us today in every wake of life
The Little Prince movie is a tad different take on the Le Petit Prince story. Even though it makes a few changes, introduces a fresher perspective, does some minor additions and subtractions here and there, it doesn’t end up affecting the overall quality. It never stops being awesome.
Music of the Little Prince
You listen to the Preparation play and you will know how beautiful the composition is. None other than Hans Zimmer frontlines its beautiful score. He stays well complemented at all times by Richard Harvey. Together they create magic!
You can listen to the Preparation here:
The Plot of The Little Prince Movie: Spoilers Ahead
Words fail to describe how much relatable I found The Little Prince movie to be. To begin with, it eases in with a drawing of a boa constrictor trying to digest an elephant in its stomach. Showing how adults crush images that are trying to impregnate a child’s head, steering them away from their dreams unknowingly.
Goes on to show how crass people’s imaginations are. They give precedence to things that are not worth paying attention to, and in their blunt obstinacy create robots that are just like them.
Then we are introduced to a little girl voiced by Mackenzie Foy (of the Interstellar fame) who is on her way to become a carbon copy of her mother. Discipline, perfection and non-stop studies are ways of her life, until one day she finds the first page of The Little Prince story.
Her neighbor The Aviator voiced by Jeff Bridges strikes up a friendship chord with her. After which she discovers, for the first time, the brilliance in fancy. The story of the Little Prince penned by The Aviator piques her interest and she keeps visiting him to know more.
“When a mystery is too overpowering, one may not disobey.”
I absolutely loved the way how contrasting frames are picked up. It’s a perfect blend that draws awe right away. Like when the old man blows pain away from the girl’s hands, the air goes on to tremble the grass with its stop motion animation in the Little Prince’s story. Also, I loved how when she picks up a shell against her ears to find the voice of sea in it.
Constant Run of Gorgeous Screenplay
Words of wisdom ooze out at every corner. Some straight from the Le Petit Prince book, whilst some by Irena Brignull and Bob Persichetti.
About hoarding, the aviator says:
“As you live, some things kind of just stick to you.
Mark Osborne uses a magnificent set of stop motion animation to weave the Little Prince’s original tale. The prince goes on to narrate his story to the aviator of how he met his rose, and about his sojourn therefrom.
There are metaphors galore, even in its subtle personification. Falling in love with a rose is actually insinuating falling in love with a girl.
The Little Prince: “You are perfect.”
Rose: “Am I not? I was born the same moment as the sun.”
The rad depiction of how the little prince just sits there, trying to reason with a vain Rose, how circumstances change the course of the planet and they end up sitting against each other have been beautifully animated.
“The shame of it was that they loved each other. But they were both too young to know how to love.”
The Rose realizes its mistake, and tries to apologize:
“Of course I love you. If you are not aware of that, it’s my fault.”
Gloom lurks nevertheless in those button like eyes of the prince. You can make it all out with Osborne’s thoughtful depiction of dusk as he covers the Prince up in a glum demeanour.
“I would very much like to see a sunset. It would remind me of my rose.”
You can grab the DVD of The Little Prince movie here:
Characters: Reflections of Societal Elements
Biding somewhat by the original, wherein the Little Prince met six, here he meets three of the characters inhabiting asteroids. All of the three are uncanny lives that have been critiqued beautifully. One is a king without subjects who has a feigned sense of power and has nobody to rule over, very much suggestive of impersonators.
Then there is that narcissistic element, the conceited man who just can’t wait to garner more praises. Reflective of how people run for vanity, even though it doesn’t earn them any strata. The third one is the Businessman who simply spends day counting stars which reflects people in real lives who are after money and materialism.
“What good does it do you to be rich?”
After knowing about all such characters in the little prince, the little girl realizes how grownups do not know what they are really after. They stay under the schism of immaterial things. She considers them really odd.
There is one brilliantly shot scene where the little girl is drinking from her glass, and from the bottom of it she realizes that her mother too is caught and lost in one asteroid, one planet of her own, just like those characters from The Little Prince tale.
“I am not so sure I wanna grow up any more.”
To that the old Aviator explains:
“Growing up is not the problem. Forgetting is.”
The Prince Resumes his Tale
The Little Prince story continues with the prince finding a snake in the desert on Earth. He doesn’t find anybody else, and inquires:
“Where are the men? It is a little lonely in the desert.”
To which the snake replies:
“It is also lonely among men.”
Taming a Fox
It is then when he finds not a cunning, rather a clever fox and strikes up a chord.
“To me you will be unique in all the world. And to you I shall be unique in all the world.”
On coming across a rosebush, the prince becomes sad for he thought his rose was the only one in the whole universe.
“My rose is just a common rose? But she told me she was the only one of her kind in the whole universe.”
Trying to reason with the prince, the fox expounds:
“But she is not a common rose. She is your rose. It is the time that you have devoted to her that makes your rose so important.”
With that the fox asks him to find her, dropping this beauty of a line:
“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”
When the little girl outside the tale tries to understand why did the prince leave the fox, the aviator explains her the importance of moving on.
“The fox, he sees the little Prince when he looks with his heart. If you can do that you will never be lonely again.”
Along with that he also tries to insinuate that he would one day leave too. The girl manages with a heavy heart:
“But I need you here.”
It is so sad that it brings tears to your eyes.
The Inevitable Showdown with her Mother
The showdown was always on the cards, since the little girl was always sneaking up, and lying to her mother. When it does finally happen, the girl stands up with:
“That’s your version of my life. Not mine. If you were ever around, you’d see that.”
Too blind to see the apparent, her mother tears her prince’s story pages and throws it in the dust bin. I loved the bit how she tapes it back, and the animation shows us then the desert in tapes. Beautifully thought of!
Words of wisdom keep spewing amidst the laughter of the prince, as the girl reads about him through her taped pages.
“The stars are beautiful because of a flower that cannot be seen. What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.”
In comes big advices that will leave you brooding:
“The men where you live grow thousands of roses, and they do not find what they are looking for. What they are looking for can be found in a single rose or a little water.”
The conversation of the aviator and the little girl is meanwhile the most nerve-racking kind. He says:
“When the moment does come for me to leave, I have to go alone.”
She tries to tell him she wishes to come too, not knowing he talks of death.
“Don’t go without me.”
Coming Out of The Little Prince’s Tale
The Little Prince meanwhile is bidding final adieu to the Aviator after telling him about his tale, and the fact that the snake has promised to end his misery rattles in the backdrop. He is trying to reason with:
“What is most important is invisible.”
As a parting gift he tells the aviator:
“In one of those stars, I shall be living. In one of them, I shall be laughing. And so when you look up at the sky at night, it will be as if all the stars are laughing.”
With that the snake bites the little prince, beautifully animated again making it disappear with a shimmer.
When the aforementioned is shared with the little girl, it bums her out. She doesn’t like how the story ends, incomplete with the little prince swaying in the stars without requiting to his lost waiting rose.
“I will grow up but I will never be a grown up like you.”
In that conversation with the aviator, she is angry at him for forgetting and disregarding the little prince. She remarks how he lost all hope, and forgot about fancy.
“You have forgotten everything, you have just become one of the grownups.”
She is mad at him beyond limit, and decides to return to her home for good. She doesn’t want to see him again, and days pass by. Her life continues with the same tinge of the stagnancy.
Once while returning, she finds the old aviator being taken to the hospital. It’s then when she feels truly sorry and runs for him like crazy. It is one of the most emotional segments of the movie, when she doesn’t stop at nothing to go see him.
The Second Story: Movie Addition
With an aim to rekindle the prince with its rose, she decides to embark the plane. Meaning she wishes to change the ending to the original. That’s when we are introduced to the second part of the story.
It is more like a different world, where characters have lost their purposes. It is a bizarre setup and for a second you start thinking that maybe the girl did start the plane, maybe she did go to a different planet, but then with the oddity, things fall in place. In reality, the girl simply tries to finish the tale with a happy ending, but from a different vantage.
There she meets all of those characters in different shoes, and ultimately the little prince who is all grown up. Her quest to take him to the rose meets fruition when they alight at the prince’s planet.
Grab your copy of The Little Prince Book here:
The final moments are the moments of epiphany for her, when despite everything she does the rose ends up dying, and withering away.
“You are supposed to be with her. I am gonna lose him too. And grow up. And forget all about him. Forget it all, forever. I don’t wanna lose him.”
It decimates you listening to her in despair. But when she realizes, with the hopeful eyes of the little prince, that all it takes is a glint of remembrance, she realizes what she wasn’t seeing.
“She was not a common rose. She was the only one of her kind in the whole universe. I remember her. I remember all of it. She is not gone. She is still here. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.”
She concurs having a vision too.
“He will always be with me. I understand now.”
Meeting the Aviator in the Hospital
Coming back to the real world, she goes with her “changed” mother to the hospital to see the old aviator again. She offers him the book that had his pages and hers, then shattering into pieces in front of him.
“You run the risk of weeping a little, if you let yourself get tamed.”
The movie ends with her mother spending time with her, trying to see the world with a child like gusto. That one star that the little prince had promised would laugh from, then concludes this epic tale.
I recommend every one to watch this movie, if you haven’t ever come across The Little Prince before. Highly recommended stuff.
You can check out the trailer of The Little Prince here:
The Little Prince
Pros
- Extraordinary Tale
- Mark Osborne depicts sub-plots brilliantly with two different types of animation
- An allegory brimming up with metaphors
- Very poetic and powerful
- Outstanding screenplay
Cons
- The Second tale becomes too lengthy
- Not much substance in the second tale
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