The Little Prince

Mark Osborne does not film the book straight. He builds a new story around it: a girl kept to a strict schedule and the aviator next door, the book itself inside the film as an object, the loose pages the old man kept for decades. That is why the Prince’s chapters are made of paper. Puppets and sets were built from it, clay added as scenes grew dimensional, watercolour painted over the faces. Since the illustrations show the Prince’s scarf held in the air, the crew rated a wind strength per sequence; the wind became its own character. For the girl’s cold, orderly neighbourhood the reference was Jacques Tati, above all Play Time and Mon Oncle. Riley Osborne, the director’s son, voices the Prince; he was taped as a scratch track in a closet under the stairs of the family’s Paris flat and kept in the part at eleven. After opening in France and winning the César for best animated feature, it lost its American release: Paramount cancelled a week before the date, giving no reason. Netflix bought the rights and released it in August 2016. A good fit if you want two production techniques separating two worlds, not a chapter by chapter transfer. Not for viewers who will resent the last stretch leaving the book for an invented rescue.