Le Grimoire d'Arkandias (2014) Directed by Alexandre Castagnetti, Julien Simonet
Adventure / Comedy
Film Synopsis
Théo is a little boy who finds life in his home town of Ronenval unbearably
tame. Since the tragic death of his father some years ago, he has had
to endure the most deprived of upbringings, and now that his mother has lost
her job after being wrongly accused of theft things can only get worse.
Shunned by most of his classmates, his life would be intolerable were it
not for his friends Bonav and Laura, a colourful pair of individuals who
are as keen as he is to break with the routine of everyday life and discover
adventure. One day, Théo is exploring the town library when
he happens to come across a mysterious old book. It seems to be a book
of magic, filled with strange spells and incantations that feed the boy's
fanciful imagination.
One of the spells provides instructions on how to construct a ring that will
make its wearer completely invisible. If he had such a ring Théo
knows that he would be able to recover the object that was reputedly stolen
by his mother, and thereby get her reinstated in her old job. Without
delay, he sets about making the enchanted ring and, to his delight, he succeeds.
But once Théo has made himself invisible, he is unable to return to
his original state. It seems that some nasty individual - Bertha Boucher,
one of the wicked sisters who got his mother into trouble - has stolen the
ring, and without it the boy will remain invisible forever! Théo's
only hope is Agénor Arkandias, a mysterious individual who has been
following him about. He clearly knows something about the world of
the occult, and yet he is strangely reluctant to help...
American film comedy had its heyday in the 1920s and '30s, but it remains an important genre and has given American cinema some of its enduring classics.
The cinema of Japan is noteworthy for its purity, subtlety and visual impact. The films of Ozu, Mizoguchi and Kurosawa are sublime masterpieces of film poetry.