I found this French animation on Netflix after I found out it was nominated the Academy Awards, it sounded like a very bizarre, but also fascinating idea for a story. Basically, in a laboratory in Paris, a severed hand comes to life and escapes. The hand begins a harrowing journey across the city, to find its way back to its body, belonging to a young man, seen in flashbacks. Naoufel (Dev Patel) had aspirations to become a pianist or an astronaut, but after both of his parents were killed in a car accident, he is forced to live with his emotionally distant uncle and his crude cousin. Naoufel tries to get by as a pizza deliveryman, but he is constantly criticised by his boss (Dennis Kleinman) for being late. During one delivery, Naoufel delivers a late pizza to a young woman, Gabrielle (Alia Shawkat), at her apartment. Though they never see each other, as Naoufel cannot get through the lobby's security door, they have a long conversation, and Naoufel quickly becomes infatuated with her. Naoufel tracks Gabrielle down, finding her working at the library where she works, but he is too nervous to introduce himself. When she leaves, he follows her dropping off medicine to a carpenter, Gigi (George Wendt). After being noticed, Naoufel notices an advert for an apprentice, and pretends to have come to take up the position. The terminally ill Gigi is at first reluctant to take on an apprentice but accepts after he learns that Naoufel is an orphan. Naoufel moves out of his uncle's house and into an attic apartment provided by Gigi. He spends time learning the trade and getting closer to Gabrielle, but he keeps his identity as a pizza deliveryman a secret. In the present day, the severed hand continues its journey, evading an aggressive pigeon, a blind man (Mark Lewis) and his aggressive dog and a baby in its crib. During one conversation at the library, Naoufel checks out a book about the Arctic. Gabrielle remarks her love for polar bears but that it is impossible to ever go to a place like Antarctica. Naoufel begins to build a wood igloo on one of the roof tops he can access from the attic apartment. Naoufel is unhappy when he returns home to find his cousin there talking to Gabrielle. She had been invited to a party that evening with him, but she says they can skip the party. Naoufel takes her to the roof tops and asks Gabrielle if she believes in fate. When she questions him further, he argues that you can change your fate by doing something unconventional, such as leaping off the ledge onto the crane that is a few feet away from them. Afterwards, he shows her the igloo he built. Naoufel and Gabrielle talk some more, and Naoufel says that he ordered a pizza. In the igloo, Naoufel reveals himself as the pizza deliveryman to Gabrielle. She is upset and misinterprets his intentions and rejects him, leaving him hurt and angry. The next morning, Naoufel returns to work hungover from going to the party alone and getting drunk and sporting a black eye. In the middle of working, cutting wood on a jigsaw, Naoufel is distracted by a fly. He recalls his father's lessons on catching a fly, and at this moment he gets his watch caught in the jigsaw, which pulls in his hand and severs it. Eventually, the severed hand reaches Naoufel while he is asleep, but it is unable to reattach itself to his arm. Naoufel, depressed and hopeless, revisits his old tape recorder, which still has recordings of his parents, including the car ride before the accident. Naoufel doesn't respond to Gigi when he tries to talk to him. Gabrielle comes to see him and finds he has left. After searching the empty igloo, Gabrielle finds Naoufel's old, abandoned tape recorder. She discovers a new recording on it. Listening, she worries that he may have committed suicide, and instead learns he had successfully leaped off the ledge onto the crane as he pondered. Naoufel lies in the crane and begins smiling to himself as he looks out at the city. His severed hand retreats into the snow. The fates of Gabrielle, Naoufel and his severed hand are not revealed. Also starring Tucker Chandler as Young Naoufel, Sarah Lynn Dawson as The Mother, Anouar H. Smaine as The Father and Tara Sands as Baby's Mother. The dubbing cast are all good, the adventures of a disembodied hand is strange but actually equally compelling, the love story is sweet, and the themes of emotional loss, need for connection and self-discovery are profound, with a great impeccable animation style, and a touching score by Dan Levy, an interesting alternative animated drama. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film. Very good!
Review of I Lost My Body
