Luc Besson talks about Arthur

Best known for violent thrillers like Leon and Nikita, director Luc Besson has turned his hand to writing children’s stories – with spectacular results – and talked to Guardian’s Jon Henley. Here’s the excerpt where he talks about is latest movie project, “Arthur and the Minimoys“.

“Besson’s fourth Arthur book, “Arthur and the War of Two Worlds“, is at the top of the French bestseller lists less than a month after its launch. The first three, starting with “Arthur and the Minimoys” have sold more than 1m copies in more than 30 countries.

There is also, needless to say, a film in the making. It stars Mia Farrow and Freddie Highmore in the flesh, and the voices of Madonna, David Bowie and Snoop Dogg, and is due for simultaneous release in 20 countries in time for Christmas next year.

First, though, the book, which started, confusingly, with an idea for a series of short five-minute films brought to Besson by friends, Patrice and Céline Garcia. “I fell in love with the drawings of the central characters, these minuscule little beings with freckles, fluffy hair, pointed ears and eyes like buttons,” he says. “I suggested they think about a feature-length movie, which they said was beyond them. So I said we’d have a go here, at my production company. It took six or seven months to make a 50-second film, combining 3D effects with real nature, but everyone loved it and I did a script. Then, of course, I couldn’t bear to wait four years for a finished film. So I wrote the book.”

The story revolves around 10-year-old Arthur and his grandma, up to her ears in debt since the mysterious disappearance of her explorer husband Archibald and threatened with eviction by a nasty landlord. Unless a solution can be found, the big old house and gardens where Arthur spends all his holidays will make way for a high-rise housing block. To pay off the developer, Arthur decides to look for the rubies his grandpa was said to have brought back from Africa years ago. He finds a secret passage into the world of the Minimoys, tiny beings two millimetres tall who live in a mesmerising land hidden in the back garden. With the help of Princess Selenia – the character voiced by Madonna – and her brother Betameche, Arthur sets off to find the treasure, battling to overcome numerous obstacles – including the evil Maltazard and his Seide warriors – on the way.

Part of what pleases him, Besson says, is that “as a small child, you can’t wait to be big. So it must be really nice to feel big when you get back to your normal size after being shrunk almost to nothing. Also, there’s the message that you can actually do more when you’re really little; it’s when Arthur’s tiny that he can fly things and drive things and have all these adventures. It’s a very inclusive idea; everyone’s related, big and small, and it’s together that we’re strong. It’s an anti-racist message.” Maltazard, lives under the garage in all the filthy old oil. The Minimoys are a whole ecosystem, clean but fragile. I want kids to know that when they dig a ditch, it’ll be like Chernobyl for anything littler than them. Kids must know the only way we can survive is by respecting nature.”

All these meaningful moral messages may have something to do with his rather chaotic personal life, about which he will not discuss. He has four children – all girls – with three different women. But the messages do not get in the way of the story, which seems to be a rip-roaring children’s yarn in the finest tradition; a little cinematographic in style, perhaps, but in French at least, nicely imagined and grippingly told.

From The Guardian