★★★★☆
IT may not even last 70 minutes but here we have one of the most rewarding, charming and thematically complex films of the year thus far, animated or otherwise.
The story follows nine-year-old Icare, nicknamed “Courgette” by an alcoholic mother who does nothing but drunkenly blame him for everything. After he causes her death by accidentally pushing her down the stairs, Courgette is moved to live in an orphanage by officious but caring police officer Raymond.
Once there he meets a diverse group of other orphans, each with their own issues. They include Simon, a much bigger boy who at first bullies Courgette before warming to him, and Camille, a pretty girl on whom he immediately develops a crush.
Its colourful, attention-grabbing world may suggest light-hearted silliness but it uses that vibrancy to brilliantly offset the darker themes like childhood isolation, adolescent teasing, abuse and how sorrow at its rawest seems to seep into a person’s very being.
Look no further than the titular character with a permanent pale blue shade around his eyes, as if stained with pure sadness. Courgette acts as both an unusual and relatable hero of a story that celebrates the light as much as it embraces the dark.
The hands-on stop-motion animation style – like so many before it, from ParaNorman to Mary and Max and beyond – gives the film a wonderful kind of handmade tactility that, in spite of its inherent artifice, allows its themes and emotion to glow even brighter.
It exerts a youthful exuberance and deep empathy towards its eclectic set of characters, while being sharply observant and achingly authentic about the troubles, uniqueness and comical curiosity of growing up, all evermore amplified by being set in an orphanage.
The film is available in both French with subtitles and English dubbed versions, each with their own linguistic charms towards telling the story.
But whatever language it’s in, this short and sweet, childlike but adult-themed animation packs a world of honesty, poignancy and beauty into one tiny package.
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