Screenplay: Le Roi et L'oiseau

Overview
Le Roi et l'oiseau unfolds as a poetic, satirical fable about power, imagination, and resistance. Jacques Prévert's tale, brought to life on screen by Paul Grimault, follows a handful of striking characters whose private rebellions collide with a capricious monarchy. The screenplay blends fairytale motifs with incisive social commentary, producing a narrative that is at once whimsical and sharply political.

Main characters
The shepherdess is a figure of quiet dignity and constrained freedom who becomes the object of the king's desire. Her companion, the chimney sweep, represents youthful courage and stubborn affection; their bond provides the film's emotional center. Opposite them stands the King, a bloated, paranoid despot whose appetite for control and spectacle drives much of the action. The Mockingbird, witty, prophetic, and transgressive, serves as both commentator and catalyst, its songs and tricks exposing the absurdity of power and guiding the lovers' flight.

Plot summary
The story opens within a city dominated by the King's whims: grand architecture, mechanical wonders, and a populace required to perform and obey. When the King sets his sights on the shepherdess, determined to possess beauty and to stage his own image, the sweep intervenes. A series of escapes and chases begins, propelled by the Mockingbird's interventions and the King's relentless pursuit. The lovers traverse surreal, ever-changing landscapes, rooftops, clockworks, and dreamlike vistas, that test their loyalty and resourcefulness. Along the way they encounter townspeople made small by fear or complicit in spectacle, and moments of tender solidarity that contrast with the King's cruelty. The chase crescendos into an uprising of imagination against authoritarian order: the people, inspired by the bird and the lovers' courage, reject spectacle as control and reclaim a measure of freedom from the King's grip.

Themes and tone
The screenplay weaves a critique of authoritarianism into a folkloric frame, suggesting that tyranny depends on fear, spectacle, and the muzzling of story. Love and artistic irreverence are modeled as antidotes to domination; the Mockingbird's songs undermine the King's legitimacy by revealing his ridiculousness. Tonally, the piece oscillates between melancholy and mischievousness, balancing bittersweet moments of loss with playful visual invention and sharp, often absurd humor. Language and image collaborate to make power seem both grotesque and fragile, while celebrating the tenacity of ordinary people and the transformative force of imagination.

Legacy and impact
Le Roi et l'oiseau is celebrated as a milestone of French animation and a rare melding of poetic dialogue with bold visual design. The screenplay's economy of mythic gesture and its moral clarity have made the story enduringly resonant: it reads as both a children's fable and an adult satire. Its influence can be traced in later animated auteurs who favor dream logic and sociopolitical subtext, and the film remains a touchstone for those who value animation as a vehicle for philosophical and political reflection.