Two recent events highlighted the balance of power in the comic book world: a poor $17 million (Dh62.42 million) US opening for Luc Besson’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets and the routine hullabaloo over the latest Marvel offerings at Comic-Con.
With Marvel and DC maintaining a stranglehold over blockbuster adaptations, the American comic-book tradition is still impregnable. Which could be one reason why an offshoot of the wilder Franco-Belge tradition — Valerian was adapted from a long-running French sci-fi serial — has struggled there.
Ingrained cultural tastes sealed its fate, suggested the French weekly Inrockuptibles in its review, accusing the Hollywood Reporter of attacking the film with an almost “protectionist” fervour.
With every new superhero flogging the same old identity crisis, the lack of an alternative way with adaptations of comic book seems a shame.
The neuvieme art, as the French like to describe their comic strips, extends far beyond Tintin and the Smurfs (recently appropriated by Hollywood studios) and Asterix, the only Francophone franchise with any commercial clout beyond its country of origin.
It is a tradition just as rich as its American counterpart — and often more fantastical, playful and less macho. Here are six glimpses at a different cinematic universe.
Barbarella (1968)
“When we reach the crescendo, you will die. Of pleasure.” So says evil scientist Durand Durand to Jane Fonda’s intergalactic sex kitten when he subjects her to the Excessive Machine. Try envisaging that happening to Iron Man. Adapted from Jean-Claude Forrest’s mildly scandalising 1964 book, Barbarella was an early hint — rarely followed up so shamelessly — that comic-book adaptations could be something else: inconsequential, camp, hedonistic.
Its frankness made it a symbol of 60s sexual revolution, but with just pleasure to define her, it’s questionable how progressive a figurehead Barbarella really is.
Blueberry (2004)
Vincent Cassel had to spit his lines in Van Damme-style Euro-English in this ropey adaptation of the revered 28-volume wild west saga about a US cavalry officer. But you can’t fault the film for not trying something different, especially its shamanic bent and psychedelic CGI sequences. It could be that the headshop vibe was what did for Blueberry commercially, which also arrived slightly early for the recent neo-western revival. Making just $5.7m in the US, most of its $40m budget spilt straight into the dust. Ironically, it’s in science fiction where Blueberry’s genius illustrator Jean Giraud (AKA Moebius) has had most influence: he did concept work for Alien, Tron, The Abyss, The Fifth Element and Alejandro Jodorowsky’s unmade Dune.
Persepolis (2007)
Marjane Satrapi’s account of her childhood years in Iran before the Islamic Revolution was originally published in French, and she and Vincent Paronnaud made an almost exact translation of her near-expressionist black-and-white visuals for the 2007 film version. Warm and perceptive, it’s a groundbreaking entry into the mainstream for Muslim women’s fiction. It also ushered in a mini-wave of more grounded, next-generation bande dessinee (BD) adaptations that included Les Petits Ruisseaux (2009), Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life (2010), and the feted Blue Is the Warmest Colour (2013).
Largo Winch (2008)
This glossy boardroom-to-backpacker thriller and its 2011 sequel were expensive Euro-productions that, in Hollywood hands, might have been the next Bond or the adventures of a Batman-less Bruce Wayne. But ultimately Philippe Francq and Jean van Hamme’s best-selling series about the globetrotting heir to a business empire wasn’t well-known enough source material outside of Europe — nor was Tomer Sisley anything like a big enough star to give it much chance of crossing over.
The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec (2010)
Luc Besson might have been better off spending his $200 million Valerian budget on eight sequels to this 2010 period romp. Adapted from the series by Tardi, another BD big-hitter, it was a League of Extraordinary Gentleman-style alt-history spree through 1912 Paris, with a woman — Louise Bourgoin — for once in the role of gallant archaeologist. Lassoing together a plot that involves freak tennis accidents, a pterodactyl on the loose and affable resurrected mummies forced Besson to crank up the kind of daffy humour that made The Fifth Element sparkle.
Snowpiercer (2013)
Director Bong Joon-ho took a premise with Gallic existentialist precision — a 1,001-car train organised hierarchically from poor to rich that endlessly circumnavigates a frozen Earth — and amped it up with South Korean humour. The end result didn’t much resemble blockbusters as we know them — from Tilda Swinton’s jam jar-spectacled, Scargill-accented tyrant to the ruthlessly linear structure and downbeat ending. You can see why Bong had to battle the Weinsteins over the final edit, but their decision to mute the $40 million film was mystifying. A limited US release never gave audiences the chance to decide whether a curio more in the Gilliamesque vein than the run-of-the-post-apocalyptic-mill was to their tastes. It never got a UK cinematic release at all.
