The Astronaut, a modern version of The Little Prince by Nicolas Giraud (review)
Five years after Sunshine in My Eyes, the French director is back with a dream of space in which he is the protagonist, alongside Mathieu Kassovitz.
“The Astronaut is a film about filial and family love, about the liberation and potential of each person, and I breathed into it my energy, my will and my dreams (…) Hélène Vincent, who is my muse, says that The Astronaut is a modern version of Little Prince.“
Therefore Nicolas Giraud presented his film last February, for its cinema release. Now that it’s available on DVD (as well as VOD on First Max), we’re reposting our enthusiastic review of this intriguing and successful space dream.
Himself in the main role, Giraud surrounded himself with Mathieu Kassovitz, Helen Vincent, Bruno LochetAnd Ayumi Roux (seen in France). And for maximum realism, he got the help of astronaut Jean-François Clervoy and Ariane Group.
Also in February 2023, he revealed to us that he had also thought of casting John Travolta for this film which is unlike any other. Here are the behind-the-scenes details:
Nicolas Giraud: “John Travolta was supposed to play in L’Astronaute”
Our review of The Astronaut : Rarely does the feeling that one experiences in front of a film marries to such an extent what its main character is facing: total disbelief. No one thinks the dream of this aeronautical engineer is achievable: to build his rocket to go into space. And many will be those who will wonder at the start of his second feature where Nicolas Giraud (who also plays the central role) wants to take us, not having the same means as in Hollywood to talk about space conquest. And yet, his film takes you on board, at his own pace, driven by the certainty that the extraordinary often comes from the ordinary. Fleeing the show, Giraud favors tight shots, especially on these looks that say more than a thousand words that this scientist exchanges with this ex-astronaut (Matthieu Kassovitz, imperial) alone to believe in him. It is by intimate familiarity that The Astronaut takes off towards unsuspected heights.
And its trailer:
