email print share on Facebook share on Twitter share on LinkedIn share on reddit pin on Pinterest

RELEASES France

The Prodigies: an extraordinary adventure

by 

Nine years in the making, The Prodigies, the 3D animated film adaptation of Bernard Lenteric’s cult novel La Nuit des Enfants Rois (“The Night of the Child-Kings”), finally hits screens today, launched by Warner in 280 theatres. Although it hasn’t received unanimous praise from critics, Antoine Charreyron’s feature (unveiled in the School Screenings section at the recent Cannes Film Festival) is nonetheless an astonishing and radical work both in terms of its dark storyline and the originality of its graphics and motion capture-based animation (Mocap).

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

When it bought the rights to the novel in 2002, Fidélité Films was planning to do a live-action adaptation of this story about some teenagers who are endowed with extraordinary intelligence, are persecuted and engaged in a destructive rebellion against the established order. But the violence of the plot and the costs of a New York shoot posed problems.

In 2007, a decision was taken to move towards animation to make the violence more elliptical and introduce elements of fantasy film (beyond their fabulous intelligence, the prodigies also have the power to control other people’s bodies). Onyx Films (who had just produced Renaissance [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Aton Soumache
interview: Christian Volckman
film profile
]
) then came on board as executive co-producer.

Aiming for a style somewhere between US comics and Japanese manga, the producers hired two top illustrators from Marvel (Humberto Ramos and Francisco Herrera) to work on the designs for the characters, and asked Viktor Antonov (a leading name in the video games sector, known for Half Life 2) to take care of the visual backdrop. Antonov decided to draw inspiration from The French Connection, Mean Streets and Taxi Driver in particular, but also from Edward Hopper’s paintings.

Several concepts were also foisted on the narrative (with a screenplay written by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de la Patellière) like the backdrop which becomes blurred when the characters’ emotions are very intense. In the end, the production team decided to do the animation in Mocap (motion capture) to retain the impact and dynamics of human actors without the constraints of hyperrealism.

The result is an uneven film with an innovative aesthetic, which was also co-produced by Studio 37, Luxembourg’s Luxanimation and Belgium’s Scope Pictures. International sales are being handled by Kinology.

Among this Wednesday’s other new releases are three more French productions: Maurice Barthélémy’s comedy Low Cost [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
(Wild Bunch Distribution); American Translation by directorial duo Jean-Marc Barr and Pascal Arnold (Zelig Films Distribution); and Pascale Thirode’s Acqua in Bocca (Hévadis Films).

Other highlights include Olivier Abbou’s Canadian/French thriller Territories (SND); Jean-Manuel Fernandez and Sean Price Williams French/US co-production Eyes Find Eyes (Alfama Films); William Monahan’s US/UK feature London Boulevard [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
(starring Colin Farrell and Keira Knightley – Metropolitan Filmexport); and Stéphane Goël’s Swiss documentary Prud'hommes (“Industrial Tribunal”, Blaq. Out).

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

(Translated from French)

Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.

Privacy Policy