By Megan Ruge Asst. living and arts editor
This week’s film comes to you from the Netflix original film archives and shares what it means to always allow yourself to have an imagination well beyond your childhood.
“The Little Prince” is an adaptation of the beloved French tale by the same name about a boy—a little prince—who teaches a grown man what it means to hold onto good things while letting other things go.
In the book, the man retells the story of his encounter with an interesting young man who has journeyed far and wide in search of clarity, but he finds what he’s looking for in a way he does not quite understand.
As many who have read the book may know, “The Little Prince” was a challenge to adapt to film. The story is simple and teaches the lesson of the importance of retaining youth. A film adaptation allowed for a lot of wiggle room, and the producers took advantage of that in a unique way.
Instead of simply telling the original tale in cinematic form, the movie tells the story of a little girl who lives in a world full of growing up, a world where childhood is unimportant and the simple idea of “fun” is crazy. The child struggles with using her imagination while trying to remain on track with the “life plan” that her mother has created.
Along the way, she meets an old man who tells a story full of youth and imagination about a boy who lived on a small planet. The boy in the old man’s story challenges him to question everything and himself, which causes the little girl to question everything she learned from a young age.
Throughout the movie, the little girl allows the old man to show her things she was not able to see before. The more she learns from him, the more her imagination grows, showing her that things were never the way she thought they were before.
The film is animated and combines two forms of animation to accurately tell the story.
The first form of animation is traditional animation. This animation made the characters in the movie resemble real life objects and people, and the style allows the viewer to identify which part of the story occurs in the present. It is often referred to as “true to life animation.”
The old man’s story within the movie occurs in a “paper doll” type animation. This animation allows the pictures from the original French tale to come to life by taking the original illustrations from the book and animating them. It is crucial to the movement of the plot.
The old man’s retelling parallels the original story and the animation helps to bring the highly beloved story to life.
The storyline added to the film could not have fit more perfectly to the original story. The added story gives light to what happens after “The Little Prince” ends. It shows how the world changed and what happened to the original idea of valuing imagination and youth.
The added storyline also gives the original story another dimension. When reading the first story, you have to evaluate for yourself what it means to you. When it is added to another story, the viewers are able to see how the tale affects another person and what it should really mean for society.
I give this fantastic film 5 out of 5 stars.
