Kensuke’s Kingdom

Writer: Michael Morpurgo

Screenplay: Frank Cottrell Boyce

Director: Neil Boyle, Kirk Hendry

Directed by Neil Boyle and Kirk Hendry, Kensuke’s Kingdom is an attractive animation which retells Michael Morpurgo’s 1999 children’s book of the same name. It’s an adventure about Michael, a twelve-year-old British boy washed up on a tiny island in the Pacific, having fallen off his parents’ sailing boat. In Frank Cottrell Boyce’s crisp screenplay, much of the book’s contextual detail has been pared away so that the focus is almost entirely on the boy Michael’s island life.

A large part of the book, on the other hand, is spent depicting Michael’s family life – the parents’ decision to sail round the world having both been made redundant, and the many countries they, Michael and his sister visit. It is only half way through that the near-fatal storm brews up which separates Michael from his family. Cottrell Boyce, however, begins with the family newly on their epic journey. In a neat, if improbable bit of story-telling, Cottrell Boyce has Michael secretly smuggle the family dog Stella on board: in the original, she was always part of the little crew.

The island on which boy and dog wash up at first seems inhospitable, vast cliffs rising above the beach which is almost cut off by every tide. But mysteriously, bowls of sweet water and raw fish start appearing every morning. It is a while before the donor appears. He is Kensuke, an older Japanese man, strikingly upright and at peace with himself (in the book he is bent low from age and hardship).

The story goes through the familiar arc – Kensuke is fiercely protective of his privacy, keeping Kensuke at bay. The pair have no common language but gesture. But gradually Kensuke lowers his guard and the pair become friends. Michael is admitted to Kensuke’s house – transformed in the film from a cave to a glorious tree house, high above the canopy, fitted with every comfort, even (how?) piped water. It is here Michael watches Kensuke paint with brushes and ink and shows Kensuke his own illustrations in the ship’s log his parents gave him at the start of the journey. In a particularly effective bit of filmic story-telling, the silent Kensuke conveys the outline of his life through his illustrations, which come alive before Michael’s eyes. In a moving sequence, which retains the brush and ink aesthetic, Kensuke’s figures reveal his tragic story: while at sea with the Japanese navy, he learnt of the bombing of Nagasaki and knows he has lost his wife and son. When his ship too is bombed, he washes up on the island where he has lived alone ever since.

Morpurgo’s book is told in the first person, Michael recounting his adventures in retrospect. Cottrell Boyce’s decision to revert to third person, following Michael’s story as it goes along, increases the tension – we don’t know if he will survive (perhaps all that’s left of him is the log book diary?). Cottrell Boyce also makes the wise decision to remove the idea that gradually the pair learn each other’s languages. In the film, Kensuke remains almost silent and the pair’s communications are appropriately organic as they watch and learn from each other. The focus becomes the wonders of the natural world in which they are living. Giant orang-utans descend from the trees at Kensuke’s respectful bidding, and we later learn that predatory hunters appear from time to time to snatch these and other jungle creatures. The film inevitably makes much of the relationship between Michael and a baby orang-utan who loses its mother.

All these sequences are lovely to look at, but there are times when there is not quite enough story line to hold our attention. This is no Studio Ghibli film, with its constant magical transformations.

Kensuke’s Kingdom is released in UK and Irish cinemas on 2 August.