Thursday, March 10, 2011

The Little Prince (by Antoine de Saint-Exupery) adapted Joann Sfar

genre: graphic novel

As a child, I was addicted to this bizarre movie of a small boy from another planet. Our Little Prince befriends a pilot whose plane has broken down in the desert. The pilot, while once very frustrated with the unimaginative-ness of adults, finds himself acting like an adult when confronted with the naivete of the Little Prince. The Little Prince has left his tiny planet and its inhabitants to travel the universe, trying to learn about whatever is out there and, in the process, discovers many of the not-so-lovely parts of humanity: our tendency to want to rule over others, our tendency to not see the forest for the trees, our tendency to want to OWN whatever we see. But he also finds out what it means to MEAN something to someone, and how it feels when that someone is taken from us. I love how he puts into words the idea that once we have loved someone, or someone loves us - we are no longer the same. And, suddenly, all the other people in the world are also different, because they are not that person.

My favorite quote?

You can only see clearly with the heart. What matters is invisible to the eye.


It's philosophical yet childish at the same time. I like it for its timelessness and for my image of Gene Wilder as the fox, in my favorite scene. The drawings in this adaptation didn't mesh well with my own image of the story, but beyond that, I did like the adaption of the text and the closeup drawings at the end actually did make me feel teary for a moment. That's impressive.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This has always been one of my mom's favorite books. She read it to us in French (translating the parts we didn't understand) when I was little, and I remember thinking it was strange, but it made a big enough impression that I remember it. Maybe that's why I haven't tried to read it for myself. I need to.
(I didn't know it had been made into a movie.)

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