After their astronaut father dies in an explosion, little Peter and his sister Anne move into their new home. While Peter is harassed by a gang of kids, Anne meets Mister Zouzoumba, a beetle from the neighboring field, convinced that they are the two chosen children who will allow him to finally go to the moon. A journey that would allow him, according to the prophecy of the Night Fairy, to recover his once lost arm, but also the tree (a job) in which he lived, and even perhaps, his companion who disappeared at the time. …
With “The kingdom of stars“, Ali Samadi Ahadi signs a new animated film, this time widely distributed, after “Tehran Spring“in 2010, documentary already featuring animated sequences, and full-fledged animated feature films such as”Pettson and Findus” in 2014 (visible on Prime Video) then “Pettson and Picpus’ Christmas” in 2015 (visible on Netflix). If the synthetic images are rather technically mastered, unfortunately the same is not true of a convoluted story, which goes in all directions, mixing cabbage and carrots, under the pretext that we are there somewhere between reality and dream. To accept this, you would already have to know that this is the adaptation of the tale “Peterchens Mondfahrt” (“Little Pierre in dreamland” in French), from the German Gerdt von Bassewit.
[Attention Spoilers] If adults will not stop asking themselves questions of minimal logic (the sudden take-off in space, where kids and other characters breathe without equipment and without problems, the absurd composition of the famous “spirits of nature”…) , the little ones also risk not understanding anything, lost in the face of the multitude of characters. So what is the relationship between “nature” and the group made up of the Sandman, the Lightning Witch, the Rain Djinn, the Thunder God, and so on…??? Over the course of the film, we end up saying that the authors seem to have lost themselves in the references (Jiminy Criquet for the famous beetle on his arm, Santa’s elves replaced here by little shooting star girls working the chain for the Moon Man, the latter’s crescent face, the metal guards of the fairy palace, very Miyazaki…), private jokes (the Sandman’s narcolepsy, the little one and the big “bear” literally and figuratively…), the basic puns that will inevitably escape the little ones (the “Milky Way” and the scenery of the race that takes place there: milk, Gruyère, fondue…), and fashion effects (the roller coaster aspect of this race, the sequins in the hair of the shooting star girls, their “singing” character…).
Indigestion therefore happens very quickly, despite some good ideas, such as the adjectives used by the little sister to describe the concept of “big brother” to others. Chances that are too easy (the violin found in an old lunar station, the sister’s backpack which includes lots of very useful objects always at the right time…), useless characters (the race commentator, a kind of baby in costume and with a ridiculous mustache, etc.), end up getting the better of the lack of humor in the whole, even child-oriented, like the taciturn and stupid aspect of the Night Fairy, or the rehearsal comedy when the beetle falls, nauseated… in milk, soup or saliva. The magic is therefore gradually extinguished in the middle of this shambles which will however perhaps stimulate the imagination of the few who will cling to this grotesque story.
