Though Chicken with Plums and The Gang of the Jotas missed my radar, Marjane Satrapi proved herself to me as a distinct and vibrant filmmaker with a vision and voice to watch thanks to both Persepolis and this year’s The Voices, the former co-directed with Vincent Paronnaud. Still with earnest hopes to stretch her potential, the graphic novelist-turned-filmmaker now signs on to adapt Romain Puertolas‘s best-selling and mouthful-of-a-title novel “The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir Who Got Trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe” as her fifth feature.
The upcoming film, Satrapi’s second English-languge feature, follows Ajatashatru Oghash Rathoda, a New Delhi trickster, who ends up in France and eventually falls in love with a Parisian woman, only to be deported accidentally with African refugees to the far corners of Europe. Indian star Dhanush is in talks to play the titular Fakir, while the director searches for three English-speaking actors to fill in three other pivotal roles.
The screenplay is completed and co-authored by Puertolas and producer Luc Bossi. The author’s debut novel has been published and sold in 36 countries since first released in France in August 21, 2013. The book arrived in the States in January of this year, although one hopes they shorten that title at least a tad before it comes to theaters. It feels like a workout and a half just to write it once, let alone multiple times in the near future or even saying it to the cashier at a box office. Is this another The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford?
While not without its faults, especially when it began to burnout towards the third act, The Voices demonstrated Satrapi versatile with her talents in ways many directors are not switching to the English-language. It also proved herself agile enough to direct a feature by herself, and it doesn’t hurt the set and art direction was just as plush and astounding as the filmmaker’s best efforts to date. Hopefully Fakir Who Got Trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe follows suit. [Variety]
