It takes a little while to meet the main character of French animator Jrmy Clapins extraordinary, dreamlike I Lost My Body; first, we get to know our protagonists previous owner. That would be Naoufel (voiced by Hakim Faris or Dev Patel if you opt for the dubbed alternative, though trust us when we say that youll want the original-recipe version), a young Franco-Arabic man in Paris. Soon, via flashbacks, well watch him go from a happy, sound-obsessed child to a sullen twentysomething scarred by tragedy; he now lives with his aloof uncle and alpha-bro cousin in the City of Light, delivering pizzas and taking shit from his boss. Life is not good for Naoufel. And judging from the elliptical shots of broken spectacles, blood splatterings and a concerned older man, something particularly bad has just gone down.
Then were properly introduced to the character wholl take the real heros journey. It is a disembodied hand. Severed at the wrist, the phantom limb scurries along on its dexterous digits like The Addams Familys Thing T. Thing. And nothing can stop this body part from getting where it needs to go not angry birds, hungry vermin, speeding subway cars, strong winds, severe falls or garbage bins. It will brave obstacles and embark upon a long, arduous quest to reunite with its lovelorn former host, one let-your-fingers-do-the-walking sprint at a time.
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An animator whose style falls somewhere between mid-Nineties anime and vintage Ralph Bakshi, Clapin has an incredible sense of both visual wit and the surreal a scene of ants attacking our metacarpal friend is both a nightmare in miniature and a sly Buuel in-joke and knows how to pace his pathos. By running parallel narratives and switching between Naoufel becoming smitten with a librarian named Gabrielle (Victoire Du Bois) and the hands desperate attempts to avoid being spotted or becoming somethings lunch, youre constantly having to figure out whats happening where, when, why. Its a gambit, and a mostly successful one, even when things threaten to take a turn for le twee. (The screenplay is cowritten by Amelie scribe Guillame Laurant, which you may consider either a feature or a bug.)
But it also allows the film to play around with a multitude of different tones and emotional scales, ranging from totally repulsive to tender. Its a romance, a thriller, a macabre comedy and a PTSD character study without ever feeling like a patchwork. Recurring motifs like soundscapes and buzzing flies help connect the back and forth. (Huge shout-out to composer Dan Levy, whose techno-propulsive score switches moods on a dime yet also keeps a sense of consistency running throughout.) As Clapin keeps dropping in black-and-white sequences of Naoufels formative years with his parents, it becomes apparent that hes also telling a touching story about what we take with us from childhood. Almost every one of the lads memories center around his hands, from letting beach sand slip through his fingers to tickling the ivories. No one can accuse this film of not being thematically on point at all times.
And once everything converges into a single timeline and I Lost My Body plays every one of its hands (sorry) so viewers get the complete picture, you begin to understand exactly how deftly Clapin and company have been playing the long game. Its a tale of someone trying to become whole again, literally and figuratively. You may also feel so exhilarated watching an insanely creative voice in animation flex his storytelling muscles that you dont realize the huge lump in your throat. The fact that its a crawling hand thats inspiring your heart to skip beats only makes things that much more impressive.
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