Festival In LA: March 2020

Monday, March 30, 2020

I Lost My Body: I Found A Masterpiece in Animation

By José Alberto Hermosillo

“I Lost My Body” is a hypnotic and poetic animated masterpiece. Remarkable, surreal, bold, and fantastique!

The non-linear narrative unfolds in two parallel and symbolic universes, the Body and the Hand, which intricately converge at the heart-rending moment of separation.

The two leading players must face their unique reality. Naoufel, the body, is searching for love. The Hand, with a mind of its own, is searching for its body. Both characters struggle with a sense of belonging, intermittent reminiscences of their tragic past, and a mysterious quest for what truly matters.

Working as a pizza delivery boy, Naoufel meets Gabrielle, a young librarian who leaves a lasting impression on him. This is the first occasion someone shows him a ray of affection. Naoufel falls for Gabrielle.

Gabrielle is a self-absorbed hard-working woman who looks after her old father, the owner of a carpentry shop, which is in danger of closing.

To break his uninflected routine and to be close to Gabrielle, Naoufel becomes employed at the older man’s shop, where his life will change forever.

“I Lost My Body” is an artistic representation of life, facing some serious existentialistic questions.

The sublime and intricate French production is an adaptation of Guillaume Laurant’s novel Happy Hand.

Mr. Laurant received his first Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay for Amélie in 2001. He also co-wrote A Very Long Engagement in 2004.

In Laurant’s newest collaboration, viewers can get a sense of his innovative “freestyle poetry” throughout his narrative, proper use of dialogs, and symbolism:

“That it must be peaceful to be cut off from the world like that. To see nothing... hear nothing...” Naoufel.

First-time director Jérémy Chapin took a modern approach to the narrative and structure from the book. The auteur teamed up with Mr. Laurant in adapting the script. Chapin’s style consists of making visible the invisible, which he masterfully achieves in "I Lost My Body."

Before filming, Chapin asked himself, "how do we make a hand a vibrant character?" He began by looking at his hand and discovered how to show the Hand's point-of-view, then he used that perspective to animate the inanimate.

To give authenticity to such a unique character and to the rest of the film, Chapin went through an immersive experience with different techniques of animation: abstract hand drawings, computer-generated animation, and CGI imagery.

“I Lost My Body” is a psychological fiction reaching universality and addressing lost love, and other meaningful subjects.

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The stunning soundtrack composed by Dan Levy is cosmic, mystical, and whimsical. We perceive ambient sounds blending in with classic, electronic, ethnic, contemporary, French rap, and lullabies. Digging deeper, there is a fusion of Buddhist and Middle Eastern music that identifies with every character and complements the film's unique haunting atmosphere.

After I saw the film, I was intrigued by the similarities with the crawling hand of the 1962 Mexican masterpiece “The Exterminating Angel/El ángel exterminador” by Luis Buñuel. I asked the director if he wanted to make a surreal piece of animation? He replied, "No. “I Lost My Body” is hard to place in a box... I avidly wanted to find what it means to be a human in the story."

Chapin's experimental narrative explores different genres and mixes them all together; action, drama, suspense, romance, and even horror. The concept, bold and volatile, works perfectly.

In recent years, only a handful number of animated films can be considered existentialist, “Waking Life,” 2001 and “A Scanner Darkly,” 2006; both films directed by Richard Linklater ("Boyhood"). Salma Hayek's production of Kahlil Gibran's poems “The Prophet,” 2014. “My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea,” 2016, and the Oscar-nominated Swiss-made stop-motion animation “My Life as a Zucchini” also from 2016.

This highly original European animation is set apart from Hollywood’s conventional narrative by exploring more daring subjects with a fresher approach. If "I Lost My Body" was Pixar, the Hand would be talking.

“I Lost My Body” won numerous awards, becoming the first animated film to win the Critic’s Week Grand Prize at Cannes 2019, COLCOA Audience Award, and Best Feature Award at the Annecy Film Festival. It also won three Anny Awards, including Best Independent Animation, Best Music, and Best Writing. The film crowned its award season with a César Award, and an Oscar-nomination for Best Animated Feature.

To say, "I lost my body" is equal as declaring, "I lost myself."

Symbolically speaking; in life, one is not only losing a part of the body but losing dreams, goals, jobs, friendships, parents, love, and hope.

A melancholic feeling permeates through the entire movie. In a society that continuously alienates individuals, and pushes them down to a complete state of emptiness, one must find a sense of belonging.

“I Lost My Body” has plenty of excitement, evocative moments, thought-provoking questions, and hopes to remind us about the forgotten dreams we had when we were kids.

I Lost My Body | Official Trailer | Netflix

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Thursday, March 12, 2020

Troop Zero: Young Earthlings on a Mission

By José Alberto Hermosillo

AFI FEST FILM REVIEW: “Troop Zero” is one of the most refreshing movies of the year. An unforgettable underdog children’s adventure based on real-life events that are captivating audiences on Amazon Original - Prime Video.

In 1977, NASA sent out to space two Gold Records with "The Sounds of the Earth," inside the Voyager spacecraft. NASA extended an invitation to children from all over the world to record a greeting in their native language.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration commissioned a small town in Georgia to represent the country. Local children team up to compete for a slot in the recording.

In there, we meet Christmas Flint, performed by young and talented Mckenna Grace (“Gifted,” “How to Be a Latin Lover”). The absence of her mother makes the young dreamer feel that someone out there in space is listening.

To reach her goal, Christmas recruits a group of Birdie Scout misfits to compete against other more "normal" groups. The purpose is to earn the most “merit badges” to succeed in the mission.

Participating in those trials will bring children together and will leave in them fond lasting memories of their experience.

According to the directors Bert & Bertie, this vibrant and colorful film took two months of preparation and thirty-two days of shooting.

After reading the script, they were inspired to work in the original story of “the voice recording to space set in the 1970s,” something they considered meaningful because unconventional children were involved.

Bert & Bertie collaborated closely with screenwriter Lucy Alibar, who also wrote: “Beasts of the Southern Wild” in 2012. Miss Alibar mentioned that she was open to suggestions, letting the actors collaborate during rehearsals.

In terms of creating such “diverse” characters, she said that "they never put colors on them." They only knew that they had to be racially mixed. Alibar also mentions she was inspired by her close friends: “They are so cool and different.”

According to the filmmakers, staging the dance scene was the most challenging part to accomplished.

Having two Academy award winner actresses in the cast, Allison Janney (“I, Tonya”), and Viola Davis (“Fences”), made the young actors feel star-struck. But as soon they started working together with the celebrities, the youngsters gained the necessary confidence to act at their level. The young actors' performances are authentic and praiseworthy.

The audience may feel that the action of this “brat pack” movie takes too long to take off, but in the end, “Troop Zero” is a rewarding movie to watch.

Other successful films that empower children and embrace the much-needed diversity in Hollywood are “Napoleon Dynamite,” “Little Miss Sunshine,” “Hunting for the Wilderpeople.” These movies portrayed both adults and children in their unique and fantastic world as well.

The film teaches us that winning is not that important. What matters is to embrace our differences, accept each other the way we are, and to gain confidence by participating in something larger than life, that leads to personal gratification.

“Troop Zero” is simple, but its freshness and lively characters exceed expectations making the audience enjoy the ride all the way to the end and beyond.

Troop Zero - Official Trailer

Related Articles:
I Lost My Body; I Found An Animated Masterpiece
“My Life as a Zucchini” The Animated Life of a Swiss Boy