My Life As a Courgette

Dir: Claude Barras

2016

****

Quite how Claude Barras has successfully created a light-hearted and touching film about a child who accidently kills his neglectful and alcoholic mother is beyond me. I think that audiences have become so used to sugar-coated and emotionally manipulative drama that it is easy to overlook the possibilities of simple story telling and that a story can contain important and heart-warming sentiment without being overly sentimental. The story is adapted from Gilles Paris’ 2002 novel Autobiographie d’une Courgette, a striking title that cleverly lures people in, even though it has absolutely nothing to do with vegetables. The story was adapted once before in a live action format for French television, while I haven’t seen it, I have seen quite a few films that deal with the same subject, so I think it was clever of Barras to take a different approach and transform the story into stop-motion animation. While the film takes on what could be seen as adult subjects, it does concern children and if I had older children I would certainly let them watch it, I would encourage them even. The story starts with a young boy called Icare who lives with his mother who has become neglectful and an alcoholic, after his father abandoned them. She once called him Courgette out of affection, a name he clings to as he hides in his attic room, playing with his mother’s empty beer cans while she drinks and shouts at the television down stairs. After a tower of beer cans he makes comes crashing down in noisy fashion, his mother storms up the attic ladder in a shouting rage. Out of fear Icare shuts the door, accidently knocking his mother down the ladder and to her death. When talking to the policeman that finds him, it becomes clear that young Icare has little understanding of the situation and just wants to go back home to his mother, an unhappy life but all that he’s used to. He develops further when relocated to a children’s home just outside of town. There we meet other children who have been orphaned due to drink, drugs and general abandonment or who have been taken from home due to abuse or because their parents have been deported. The abuse and the effect it has had on each character is treated with great care and is at the heart of what makes the film so profound. There is wonderful simplicity to the film that really helps in getting the subject across, with attention to detail prevailing over stereotype or cliché. It is profound to see such dark issues addressed with such innocence and clarity, making the film appealing to both older and younger viewers. It doesn’t do anything it doesn’t have to and doesn’t stick to any formula for the sake of it. Stop-motion can take a ridiculously long time. Which is probably the reason the film is only an hour long but I’m glad that they didn’t work that little bit longer to conform and essentially bulk the film with unnecessary filler. The animation is terrific, the perfect balance between detailed and simplistic, with slight facial expressions rightfully deemed as most important, over lavish background and scenery. It’s a wonderful look at how people, no matter what age they are, cope with loneliness and abandonment and also how they can find unity and belonging from them. A bold but subtle venture that will hopefully be of some influence on kids films for now on.