Sandcastleby award-winning documentary filmmaker Pierre Oscar Lévy and illustrator Frederik Peeters “truly inspired my film Old. It is a profound mystery, sci-fi graphic novel that is illustrated so beautifully and with such humanity. Its themes of aging had me thinking about my parents and children and how quickly it all goes by. From the moment I read this I was changed” (M. Night Shyamalan).
It’s a perfect beach day, or so thought the family, young couple, a few tourists, and a refugee who all end up in the same secluded, idyllic cove filled with rock pools and sandy shore, encircled by green, densely vegetated cliffs.
But this utopia hides a dark secret.
First there is the dead body of a woman found floating in the crystal-clear water.
Then there is the odd fact that all the children are aging rapidly. Soon everybody is growing older—every half hour—and there doesn’t seem to be any way out of the cove.
Pierre Oscar Lévy’s dramatic storytelling works seamlessly with Frederik Peeters’s sinister art to create a profoundly disturbing and fantastical mystery.
“Begins like a murder mystery, continues like an episode of The Twilight Zone, and finishes with a kind of existentialism that wouldn’t be out of place in a Von Trier film.” —Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Praise
"It's based on this graphic novel that I was given from my daughters," he said. "I read it, and the premise was so powerful, of these people that went to this beach and their experience that happens on that day in the beach… I thought it was very frightening and emotional, and the ideas just started coming, and I tracked down the owner, and the person that wrote it. It was just a beautiful thing, and kind of touching, that it came from my daughters, this story about getting older very, very quick.”Entertainment Weekly, M. Night Shyamalan
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"It’s an obscure graphic novel. This book gave me the opportunity to work through things like my parents’ getting older…”The New York Times, M. Night Shyamalan
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"A tight, taut tale."Forbidden Planet International blog review
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"Begins like a murder mystery, continues like an episode of The Twilight Zone, and finishes with a kind of existentialism that wouldn't be out of place in a Von Trier film."starred review, Publishers Weekly
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"Sandcastle truly inspired my film Old. It is a profound mystery, sci-fi graphic novel that is illustrated so beautifully and with such humanity. Its themes of aging had me thinking about my parents and children and how quickly it all goes by. From the moment I read this I was changed.”M. Night Shyamalan
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“Shyamalan adapted his disquieting tale from the graphic novel “Sandcastle,” by the French writer Pierre Oscar Lévy and the Swiss illustrator Frederik Peeters. As is frequently the case with French-produced bandes dessinées, “Sandcastle” is a stark existentialist parable.”—New York TimesNew York Times
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