Some films
are just so astoundingly adept at dealing with dour, depressing subject matter
with just the right amounts of comedy and pathos that one comes away from
having viewed them with the sense that they have experienced something
absolutely real. Ma vie de Courgette (My
Life as a Zucchini), animated in clay stop-motion and directed by Claude
Barras, is such a film; it is a rare feat of delica
cy that brings to life the
tale of a nine-year-old boy orphaned at the accidental death of his alcoholic
mother and his quest to find his place among a group of troubled children in a
youth group home. The film doesn’t coddle its characters, or mold them into
clichés – it is, instead, a stark narrative into the minds of children whose
lives were uprooted by the poor decisions of their parents, and reads very much
like we are eavesdropping on the outsider children’s slumber party. The
intimacy of childhood relationships, strange as they are, are explored with
admirable finesse.
Courgette
– in English, Zucchini – is himself a bit of a cipher; his personality is
colored in by the things we never quite come to fully understand about
him. His relationship with his mother is
only hinted at as complicated and melancholy; she is represented posthumously
as a salvaged empty beer can Zucchini keeps tucked beside the hand-decorated
kite he associates with his departed father, and the two objects come to
represent who he is as a character as they symbolize the pieces of his heart.
Indeed, it is the pieces of his mother and father together which build Zucchini
up and allow him to forge relationships with the other children, and with
Raymond, the policeman who found him and continues to visit him at the
orphanage. It is through these objects, and the crayon drawings Zucchini sends
to his friend to tell him about his life at the home, that we really get to
know the boy as a character and how he relates to others.
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| Mama always said.....life is like a box of chocolates. |
The real
brilliance of this film is in the way it treats each of the children, not as
the amalgamations of the traumatic events they have witnessed and gone through,
but as individuals with hope and potential. They are not defined by their pasts,
though they are clearly affected by them; while it would have been easy to
design the resident bully, Simon, as a one-dimensional thug jaded in having
been abandoned when his parents were sent to prison for drug use, he is instead
illustrated as a complex young person battling feelings of deep resentment
toward a whole world he feels has turned its back on him and those like him. He
rises from his petty antagonism and becomes one of the strongest allies
Zucchini has, and is revealed to take his role in the orphanage of a sort of
“big brother” figure quite seriously.
Zucchini’s
journey finds its most poignant meaning when he meets Camille, a girl who comes
to the home hoping to escape the clutches of a cruel and abusive aunt desiring
to adopt Camille for the money she would receive. The nascent prepubescent
romance between the girl and boy is detailed tenderly, as something developing
naturally between them through an abiding and caring friendship that buoys both
of them through even their darkest fears. Camille and Zucchini bring out in
each other the optimistic future at the heart of the entire film – holding onto
each other’s hands, their supportive love is tangible and strong, and the
suggestion that there will be lifelong connections between all of these
children no matter what happens to them reminds us that it doesn’t matter so
much where we come from or what we go through. What matters is who we are, how
we are shaped by what happens to us, and who is there with us when all is said
and done.
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| I sense a snowball fight is coming. |
Animated
with beautiful imperfection, Ma vie de
Courgette is a stop-motion study in the inner lives of children who have
been expected to grow up far before their time, in some very brutal and unfair
ways. But the saucer-eyed, Paul Berry-esque waifs of Barras’s film will touch
the heartstrings – not because they are caricatures, or because they are
sentimentalized, as many children tend to be in fiction. These characters will
stick with the audience long after the credits roll because they are people, fleshed
out in colorful clay designs and the dark psychological elements of spoiled
innocence.
A rare
film indeed, with a narrative and emotional depth that respects not only its
characters, but the heart and intelligence of its audience. When the credits roll,
the heart swells – and soars alongside Zucchini’s handmade superhero kite.
Score
-Dana Culling