{"id":110346,"date":"2019-10-04T10:12:40","date_gmt":"2019-10-04T09:12:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=110346"},"modified":"2019-10-04T10:12:40","modified_gmt":"2019-10-04T09:12:40","slug":"the-princes-voyage-lff-film-review-delightful-monkey-business-for-all-the-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/reviews\/the-princes-voyage-lff-film-review-delightful-monkey-business-for-all-the-family\/","title":{"rendered":"The Prince&#8217;s Voyage LFF film review: delightful monkey business for all the family"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In 1999, Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Laguionie, a French animator with directing credits dating back to 1965, made his third feature, <strong><em>Le Ch\u00e2teau Des Singes<\/em><\/strong> (<strong><em>The Castle Of Monkeys<\/em><\/strong>). It followed a rebellious teenage simian discovering an ostensibly more civilised society of simians, only to get caught up in a plot to murder a king. In the UK in 2000, the film was released as <strong><em>A Monkey\u2019s Tale<\/em><\/strong>. The screenplay was considerably reworked in the translation to English, Rik Mayall played a comic relief villain, and the marketing campaign heavily promoted a soundtrack song by Westlife. It\u2019s basically the epitome of a dawn of the millennium bastardisation of a foreign animation.<\/p>\n<p>What does any of this have to do with Laguionie\u2019s charming new film, <strong><em>The Prince\u2019s Voyage<\/em><\/strong>, co-directed with Xavier Picard? Well, although it is not an explicit continuation, the new film sees Laguionie explore new ideas and stories within what seems to be the same universe. The lead of this film shares the design and royal lineage of a supporting character from <em>A Monkey\u2019s Tale<\/em>, and that previous film\u2019s lead character is alluded to in a flashback. But <strong><em>The Prince\u2019s Voyage<\/em><\/strong> requires absolutely no knowledge of <strong><em>A Monkey\u2019s Tale<\/em><\/strong> to follow its story \u2013 a relief to many.<\/p>\n<p>Although perfectly accessible for children, <strong><em>The Prince\u2019s Voyage<\/em> <\/strong>is a particularly cine-literate animation for adult viewers, with apparent homages to more than just <strong><em>Planet Of The Apes<\/em><\/strong>, which immediately comes to mind when a simian adult washes up on a beach at the start.<\/p>\n<p>Claiming to be Prince Laurent from across the ocean, he finds himself in a realm of simians, with young boy Tom as his guide, where creatures of his kind living overseas is the stuff of legend. Think the apes of<strong> <em>Planet Of The Apes<\/em><\/strong> being flummoxed by humans speaking, except with simians refusing to believe that other simians exist anywhere else.<\/p>\n<p>With a graceful, delicate animation style and mellow score, this is a compelling, tender and thoughtful exploration of xenophobia through a fantasy context.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>The Prince\u2019s Voyage<\/em><\/strong> <strong>is showing at London Film Festival on 6 October.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>French animator Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Laguionie returns with The Prince&#8217;s Voyage, playing at the London Film Festival<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":110349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[2615,8],"tags":[6655],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/princes-voyage-forest-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110346"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}