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Luc Besson Adapting The Mechanics of the Heart into Animation

by Alex Billington
February 5, 2008
Source: Variety

There used to be a time where I'd say that anything French filmmaker Luc Besson touched would be solid gold, but he has since then destroyed my impressions with that awful animated movie Arthur and the Invisibles. Oddly, it wasn't Luc Besson's fault at all, it was the studio's, who butchered it for an American release with terrible dubbing and editing. One of the most interesting bits of news to pop up the last few days was an announcement that EuropaCorp, Besson's production and distribution company, had bought the rights to Mathias Malzieu's novel The Mechanics of the Heart and would be turning it into a 3D animated movie. If things go a bit better this time, maybe this movie could actually turn out much better than Arthur and the Invisibles.

The novel was written by Mathias Malzieu and is originally titled La Mecanique du coeur (which means The Mechanics of the Heart) in French. You can pick up a copy on Amazon.fr. It later went on to inspire a music album by Dionysos. Set in 1874, the story is about a young man whose heart was replaced at birth with a clock. He should avoid strong emotions, and above all love, but can't keep his heart under control. What a wonderfully inspirational idea just right there and I'm sure the French novel has a lot more to it as well.

The novel's writer, Mathias Malzieu, will write the script and co-direct. Stephane Berla, who directed Dionysos' music videos, will co-direct and Joann Sfar, who contributed graphics for the book and album (as seen below), will collaborate in the novel-to-screen rendering. The photo below is from the Dionysos album, but is the exact same graphic used on the novel as well. It should give you an idea of the look and feeling of the animation. From that graphic alone and the description of the story above, this has quickly shot to top of my list for animated movies I'm looking forward to, which is very rare considering Pixar's dominance.

A release date hasn't been set, but considering the time frame required for animated movies, expect a release no earlier than 2010 or 2011. In the meantime, head to Amazon.fr to pick up a copy of the novel or just wait for us to bring you more updates during its development.

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