Comments at the Margins: Bernard Werber on Ant-Man

The movie

By Péter MARTON
** Join the European Science Fiction group on Facebook for related discussions. **

Having recently seen Ant-Man (2015, directed by Peyton Reed), I turned to the internet to find out if Bernard Werber, author of the 1991 novel Les fourmis (and the larger La saga des fourmis), had anything to say about the movie. For me, ants in SF equal Werber's work to start with. It is a mandatory reference point to have in any conversation. And it is so for some in France, too. As I found out, this means on the one hand that he was invited to offer a critical review of the film as well as interviewed about it. On the other hand, this doesn't mean much more than that...

Below, an excerpt from the interview to explain this. This comes after Werber reveals how his work has gone on to inspire some in France who sold the idea to the US where a producer took it from one studio to the other... so Werber was completely forgotten by everyone involved in the end... He is asked here if someone may still be planning some sort of adaptation in France; my own translation follows.

Werber: "Nothing in France. There is no real science fiction cinema in this country. Apart from Besson who is trying his things, the people have the impression that this is a genre for the Americans, the idea that only they know how to make it or only they have the means to pull it off is deeply implanted in them. Without a courageous and determined producer it is very difficult. You're poaching in alien territory so it takes guts as well as wits to succeed. I am a fan of Pierre Boulle, the best-known French author in the US, yet the majority of the French don't know that it was a Frenchman who wrote Planet of the Apes. That is how much they believe that only Americans can produce anything meaningful in this genre."

That is exactly why I set up this blog and the related Facebook page. The phenomenon Werber is talking about is by no means unique to France. And this is how many European authors we have covered here already. It is an uphill struggle, no doubt, but one that is very much worth fighting.


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