A scene from The Miracle of the Little Prince (Film Movement)

Since its publication in 1943, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s gentle philosophical fable The Little Prince has been translated into more than 375 languages (reportedly more than any other book except the Bible). It has been embraced in particular by those whose languages and cultures are threatened with extinction. The miracle of Dutch director and cinematographer Marjoleine Boonstra’s documentary is how these endangered societies—the Berbers of Morocco, the Sami of Scandinavia, the indigenous Pipil of El Salvador, and exiled Tibetans living in Paris—use this novella as a tool for cultural survival,

Divided into four “chapters,” the film opens at dawn in the Sahara Desert as the book’s famous epilogue is read in French in a voice-over: “To me, this is the most beautiful and saddest landscape in the world. It’s here the little prince appeared on planet Earth, and disappeared.” We meet, not the titular hero, but a Berber family arising from their tents, milking their camels, preparing breakfast, and setting out for school in a nearby village.

Another passage is read in Tamazight by its Berber translator Lahbib Fouad, who recalls his childhood, when he was forced to learn Arabic in school. He has dedicated his life to preserving his native language for the next generation. He notes the difficulties of translating terms unfamiliar to the Berbers—for “fountain,” he chose the word “spring.” And yet he also finds appealing commonalities, such as the Little Prince talking to animals. The camera then cuts to a Berber woman chatting affectionately with her donkey.

The film’s most moving and strongest section, set in the arctic reaches of Finland, introduces Sami translator Kerttu Vuolab, who describes how her parents sent her to boarding school after her sister’s drowning. There she was bullied because she could not speak Finnish, and she sought refuge in the library, where she read The Little Prince. “It gave me friendship and consolation,” says Vuolab. When she was a university student, she decided to translate Saint-Exupéry’s masterpiece into Sami.

In El Salvador, linguist Jorge Lemus works with three elderly indigenous women to translate The Little Prince into Nahuat, also called Pipil, a Uto-Aztecan language that today is spoken only by about 300 people. In the wake of a 1932 massacre by government forces, survivors were so fearful of being caught speaking Nahuat that one woman remembers that when she was a girl, her grandmother “would send the dog away” before she could teach the granddaughter a few words. The challenge for Lemus is how to translate a modern literary work into a dying dialect that doesn’t have a word for “rose,” a key element in the story.

The fourth section finds Tibetan translator Tashi Kyi and story editor and writer Noyontsang Lamokyab living in exile in Paris, teaching the native tongue via the social media app WeChat to their countrymen  back in Tibet, where the lingua franca in official transactions is now Mandarin Chinese. “Language defines a person’s personality,” says Kyi. “It’s difficult to separate language from identity.” If your language is being erased, who are you?

Why do readers from many cultures pick this particular book as a way to preserve their languages and cultures? Is it the simplicity of the language and the story? The themes it raises? If slow-moving and sometimes vague, Boonstra’s touching and beautifully shot film hints at but never fully answers these questions. A little more background on Saint-Exupéry and the issue of endangered languages could have provided a bit more context. Likewise, the lack of an explanatory narration may leave viewers initially confused about where these cultures are located. As an alternative for curious filmgoers, Charles Officer’s 2018 Invisible Essence: The Little Prince examines this classic’s literary legacy and its author in greater detail.