'I Lost My Body' - Movie Review

I keep a list of movies I want to watch. It's not exhaustive, tending to the obscure as a reminder of movies that sounded particularly interesting but would otherwise probably never cross my path again. For example, it would have been kind of pointless to write myself a reminder to watch "Black Widow:" Marvel's products are ever-present. "I Lost My Body" on the other hand - a weird (but well reviewed), adult-oriented animated movie out of France? That I made a note of. And to my substantial surprise, I found it on Netflix tonight.

The movie starts with a severed hand leaving the refrigerator that it's been placed in at the hospital. Part of the movie is the adventures of the hand as it crosses the city of Paris, for example fighting off rats in the underground. The other parts of the movie tell us the story of Naoufel, a young Moroccan man living in Paris - we aren't surprised to learn, from a visible blemish on the hand, that the hand we've been watching belongs to him. Naoufel - like all children - had great aspirations as a child. He wanted to be both a pianist and an astronaut. He's grown into an intelligent and decent guy, but he's mostly doing menial work. A chance encounter with a young woman changes his life.

The movie is - unsurprisingly, given you know from the beginning that our antagonist is going to lose his hand - a bit depressing. But it's very good. I guess without the very strange secondary story of the hand's quest, we couldn't have had the flashbacks, and the story would have been too boringly linear. But built as it is - it becomes a mystery. Naoufel is a charming, memorable, and well written character who is eminently worth spending an hour and a half with.