My Little Prince (Mark Osborne, 2015): France

Reviwed by Felix Palmqvist, Santa Barbara, 2016. Arlington Theater

This was the first and best film I watched on the Santa Barbara Film Festival, and I watched a lot of films. I never thought I would say that about an animated film, because I am really not a big fan of either cartoons or animated films, but this was different in so many ways. I would like to say it is a kids movie for adults, but that does not mean that kids can’t see it. It is still animated in an appealing way for kids, but people under the age of 15 or so might not completely understand it. I don’t think most adults even fully understand it.

As I said before, this was the opening screening at the Santa Barbara Film Festival. It was also the first screening of the film in the United States. It was really an honor to be there and see it. The director himself, Mark Osborne, told us in a seminar that he was really insecure abut what reactions the film would get.

It is basically a story within a story that is being told, imagined, and visualized by the mind of a little girl; a little girl who gets introduced to the world of grown-ups, where everything has to be planned out. This is visually showed in the film by having a grey and symmetrical environment, which shows how the little girl sees the world. The only thing that stands out is the neighbor’s house. It is colorful and asymmetrical, but scary, though the girl does not hesitate to explore and she finds herself on a journey to understand what life really is about.

The thing that makes the film so great is the big visual differences between the real world and the fictional world in the story, which is visualized in stop motion but gets more and more detailed as the film goes on. It is like her vision of the book she is reading is getting stronger and clearer.

This is a great movie. It basically tells all these stories about life in hypotheses that you are free to interpret in way the you like as an audience. It is also a film for all ages, with the visuals to please a younger audience but with a deep story for adults.