I Lost My Body review – dazzling animation has the upper hand

An almost Malickian longing to understand the strange inner workings of the universe drives this stunning and poignant animated film about a severed hand trying to reconnect with its owner. If that premise seem outlandish and – frankly – ridiculous in theory, it isn’t long before I Lost My Body puts your fears to rest. Within minutes, you’ll be rooting for the hand.

The debut feature from French filmmaker Jérémy Clapin, animated in a style reminiscent of Japanese anime, I Lost My Body unfolds as a series of interconnected timelines hinged on a young man named Naoufel. In flashback, we see him as a child, encouraged to pursue his dreams of going into space by two loving parents. Later, we catch up with him again, though he’s older, adrift, and working as a pizza delivery boy in a thread that will ultimately carry him through to a romance with a librarian named Gabrielle, and the fateful moment where his hand will come away from his body.

Clapin creates a swirling narrative from a meticulous script that seems to circle around on itself with a self-referential quality. Every detail seems part of some larger idea or linked to something that will later return. “Do you believe everything is mapped out for us?” Naoufel muses, as the film grapples with themes of fate and circumstance. Meanwhile, Dan Levy’s stirring music feels just as prominent as the stunning visuals. At times, his vibrant, synth-heavy score – one that seems to be constantly searching for answers and inspiring us to go out and find them – seems to frame Paris as a city from a sci-fi movie.

Taken at its most literal level, I Lost My Body works, too, as a heartfelt tribute to actual hands. It’s a film that’s certain to make you appreciate your own in ways you never expected. Things we take for granted – gripping the handlebars of a bike, picking up food, letting sand fall between our fingers – are animated with an intimacy that can be felt on a personal level. Soon you begin to realise just how much of every life is lived through hands alone.

Like the Toy Story films before it, I Lost My Body also moves between existential questions about what it is to be alive and height-based hi-jinks. Blood-thirsty rats, swarming ants, and protective pigeons all provide the film with its wonderfully dangerous and inventive set pieces (not to mention a subway train, a blind pianist and his guide dog, and a gang of bin men). These scenes don’t exist simply to raise your pulse rate (although they certainly do that): this hand’s perilous journey echo the feelings of inferiority felt by its master, an immigrant living in a city that seems determined to beat him down.

I Lost My Body suggests that with the loss of any limb, real or metaphorical, it’s always possible to move on, to become better versions of ourselves. Life is full of hardships, it tell us, but they are part of something bigger. Something – like this thrilling, intoxicating, and thought-provoking film – incredibly beautiful.

★★★★★

By: Tom Barnard

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This film was screened to the press as part of the BFI London Film Festival 2019. For more information and showtimes for this year’s festival, head to our dedicated page.