A Dystopian Little Prince

Over a year ago, the first trailers for an animated adaptation of Antoine du St. Exupery's The Little Prince first appeared and promised an enchanting film that I had told myself would, along with Inside Out be a pair of movies that my son could turn to for wisdom for years and years.  Throughout the months that followed the promise of a blockbuster bringing the hordes to the theatres fizzled and left me puzzled. There were delays and delays for the English language version to be released.  In March 2016 it made a brief appearance in Canada while news came out that the film would go direct to Netflix. Odd harbingers all.

Still, I was eager to take my son to the movie whenever it would be released.  I tried reading my son a chapter a night for a few nights and then when the movie tie-in book came out I resorted to that for the sake of having a one night read. When the time came to see it in March, I headed out to see it on my own.  He was tired that particular day and the showings were scheduled so sporadically that it suggested that it would be better to see it alone if I were to see it while it was still in the theatres.

I had only come upon The Little Prince when I was in my late 20's. It immediately had an impact on me and since reading it I have probably purchased at least a dozen copies whether as gifts or replacements for leant copies that remained wayward. I currently have three copies, including a French-language version and the film tie-in I mentioned. I was going in informed and with a vested interest in how it turned out.

It was evident in the trailer that the movie was going to lean toward a telling of the story hat would indicate it's telling and themes rather than directly tell the story in the manner that St. X wrote. There was a clever reference to a modern single mom's ambition to get her child into Werth Academy - named after dedicatee Leon Werth and I thought that was an interesting sign that every corner of the book was going to be mined for its potential. As the story moved back and forth between the pilot's interaction with the modern world and his recollection of the story in the desert as he first wrote or experienced it, the story was true to its source and as enchanting as hoped.

The distinctive animation of the desert scenes had a delicate element to it which reflected in a small way the illusion that St. Expuery's story was of those drawings that he shared and keeping alive a shallower roman a clef truth to what he concocted out of his experiences when his own plane crashed in the desert. The animation lends itself to the profound and ancient rather than mere whimsy and in these scenes of the movie, the novella's wisdom is respected and delivered effectively to the screen.

If only the whole movie were presented in that delicate manner. The alternating "modern" scenes about the now-ancient pilot's efforts to befriend and enlighten the high-achiever-to-be girl next door, are of a more contemporary CGI look and the efforts there eventually test the patience of those more familiar with the original story. The framing emphasizes the importance of the story and its messages in our modern world but the reality is that the source is an exceptionally deep 108 (illustrated) pages. 

This interpretation of the story for screen ultimately fails on the dark turn the story makes during the concluding act. The filmmakers discard the fragility of the desert scenes for a dystopian sequence that calls to mind George Orwell's 1984 or Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall." The sheer menace during these scenes would have prompted me to leave before the film ended if I had been watching it with my son. I finished the film on my own, but felt disappointed at the end result. Given the responsibility of adapting The Little Prince, the filmmakers blew it with their third act and that would provide some reason why the film had such an odd route to (home) screens in North America.

Trapped In the Antechamber of Sleep

I will get where I'm going eventually, but I'm going to start with an ongoing discussion my wife and I have had off and on about whether or not to get Netflix. Ideally we would cut cable and go for Netflix as an alternative.  I'm watching less and less television of late, not even watching basketball on a regular basis.  Nadine watches The National regularly and indulges in the disaster movie genre late on a Saturday night, late of course being 8:30.

For my own part, I've occasionally gone all in on a 99 cent rental from iTunes, but I don't usually get around to watching them until the very last day of the 30 rental period.  Tonight I tried to beat the clock on a rental that is an interesting echo to this period of parenthood.  While We're Young had an echoey premise with a pair of childless 40-somethings finding themselves struggling with middle age and also losing touch with friends who have kids.  Not that I'm in the main characters' situation but it has been interesting to see a subtle, not too broad comedy.  Today being the 30th day on the rental, I managed to squeeze in the first 52 minutes this morning thanks to a gust of insomnia that got me out of bed at 5:10 this morning.

Tonight I have the balance of the movie, another 53 minutes to get in before the things expires at 9:34pm tonight.  I'm also flying solo tonight as Nadine has had her first girls' weekend of motherhood start today.

Gabriel missed Nadine tonight and getting him down tonight required a bit more attention and work. I got him into bed a 8pm sharp after dinner, vitamins, teeth and his books but he was a little restless and longing for Nadine's comfort on this night.  When we first settled in, he was rather chatty and energetic a sign that he might be a while settling in and falling asleep.  We exchanged notes on bumps and scratches that we have accumulated over the last few days and assured one another that we would recover.  I resorted to what I could to settle him down, stroking his stomach and his head to help him, but as he settled down time and again there was always a stumble on his way from consciousness to sleep.  

As the first silence settled, he interrupted himself to tell me that dressing up as Super Mario and going on stage to "dance" to "Uptown Funk" was the highlight of our holiday last month.  I did not get enough shots of that.  I settled him down again or so I thought and I laid quietly next to him waiting for that rhythm and rasp of breathing that suggested that he was nodding off...out.  As I weighed the growing silence in the dark he would perk up to ask where his, "medium-size bear, Barry" (or Beary, he'll correct me on the spelling when he spells) is and a few minutes later asked about his rabbit, which is nameless.

The breathing settled into that familiar rhythm as the hour ticked along and I felt confident enough to nudge myself to a seated position on the side of his bed, only to have him ask where I was and what I was doing. I settled back in next to him again and waited for the breathing to indicate whether he was progressing toward sleep.  I had to do this a few times.

There was one time he asked me if I heard what he heard in the still of the apartment and another where he pointed out that the only thing he could hear was me shushing him to get quiet and settle down.

On another occasion, "You farted. That was funny," left me wondering if he was back at square one.

Throughout, I kept my eye on the clock and wondered if his unsteady progression toward sleep might keep me from finishing the movie before it expired.  There were other interruptions as he asked what we were doing on the weekend, asked when his mother was coming back and rambled randomly in utterances that suggested he was finally giving up consciousness for the day.  He fell asleep around 9pm and allowed me a chance to see the rest of the movie.  The juggling act, as one of the later scenes in the movie admitted, especially for parents of young kids in their 40s is, both physically and mentally, a demanding one. I'm glad the Mrs. is getting a break from it at last.  In the meantime, hold on to your sense of humour and your ability to let things go.