As a French animated feature film with a special perspective and a sophisticated structure, the plot of the movie "I Lost My Body" is smooth and natural, and the editing and music are in perfect harmony. More importantly, it shows on the basis of reality. Great imagination.
The cost of an animated film is relatively small, and it can also sacrifice some realistic logic for the story, but it is not easy to make a good film because it must show convincing imagination. For me, watching animation means seeing imagination, which is the essence and vitality of animated movies.
"I Lost My Body" is undoubtedly outstanding in this regard!
Pizza boy with his right hand
There are two protagonists in "I Lost My Body", the pizza boy Laufir and his right hand. The whole story runs in parallel, one line shows the life and experience of the boy Laufir in a flashback, and the other line Then, an independent right hand suddenly came to life, escaped from the refrigerator and the hospital, and began to explore and search in the city.
The boy Lowfel lives an ordinary life that can no longer be ordinary. His job is to deliver pizza. He is often scolded by his boss for being late to work. After get off work, he returns to the rental house and endures the chaotic roommates of his life. In this reality, he can't help but think of his childhood life. His father taught him all kinds of knowledge, and his mother taught him musical instruments. His dream is to become an astronaut and a musician until a car accident takes the lives of his parents.
The good life came to an abrupt end. He was reduced from the middle class to the bottom edge of the city. He didn't fulfill any dreams or even a decent job. Some were just a suitcase with some tapes, which recorded the conversation with his parents.
On the way to deliver food, he encountered a small accident. The delivery was 40 minutes late. However, he also met the girl who ordered the meal, Gabriel. Out of shyness, he started to follow the girl like a pervert, but by chance Xia became the apprentice of the girl's grandfather and began to learn woodworking. I thought that I could get close to Gabriel, but after telling the truth, I was reprimanded as a bastard by the girl and completely lost in love.
Although life is a mess, there is still room for worse. Lowfel, who was in a depressed mood, drank a lot of wine at the party and fought with others. When he came back to work the carpentry the next morning, he gave his whole right hand to catch a fly.
On the other side, this right-handed city tour seems to be trying hard to survive, avoid falling from high altitude, avoid being eaten by mice and ants, avoid drowning in the lake... In the process of trying to survive, hand His memory was completely awakened, the feeling of touching the gravel at the beach, playing the piano, and touching others.
In the end, the right hand returned to the boy Laufir, but he could no longer connect with his arm, which was a futile effort.
Life is like a fly that can't be caught
I have to say that the atmosphere of the whole movie is shrouded in a kind of sadness, and people seem to be extremely indifferent, with an indescribable sense of doomsday, as if everyone is enduring something. The story focuses on Lowfel, the boy who has been losing, the loss of his parents, the loss of a prosperous life, the loss of his dream, the loss of love, and finally the loss of his right hand, a completely miserable young man.
In the movie, "fly" is a particularly special image. In his childhood, Lowufier asked his father, "How to catch flies?".
His father told him some skills, but it was still useless for Lowufier, so his father comforted him, "You can't go well, this is life."
Open the story with a childhood memory, and at the same time set the tone of the whole series with "You can't do everything right, this is life". The fly has become a recurring image at the turning point of life. In the first appearance, a family of three had a car accident, and in the second appearance, Lowufier became disabled.
Flies, although they look dirty and disgusting, are difficult to catch with bare hands, and it is also difficult to predict their trajectory. To some extent, it is like life, full of variables and unknowns. Not only is it impossible for everything to happen, it is more likely that, Everything is unsatisfactory, and we must live in this unsatisfactory.
Real experience
So what exactly is the movie talking about? Is it just telling the tragic life of a boy? it's not true!
In the process of watching the movie, I thought of another movie, the 2016 sci-fi movie "Arrival", adapted from the Chinese sci-fi writer Ted Jiang’s "The Story of Your Life".
The heroine has foreseen her future because of learning alien languages. She will marry the people around her, give birth to a daughter, and then divorce, and the daughter will die one day. Even if she knew this, she chose to marry and have children and obeyed her destiny.
Some people understand the story as fatalism. In my opinion, this movie is about human existence and the experience of existence.
All life has a time limit, and so does human beings, but human beings are even more miserable, because as intelligent creatures, human beings are aware of their own aging and death, and have foreseen them. If they will die sooner or later, what is the point of human existence? Narrowing the scope to the individual, what is the meaning of your existence?
Do you have a job or a marriage relationship? Work is just a tool for living, and having a marriage may not be lost.
Is it to propagate the next generation of civilization? Not necessarily, the daughter of the heroine in "Arrival" passed away during adolescence.
Or something else?
I personally think that " Arrival " gives the answer. The meaning of existence is to perceive existence and experience existence. On the surface, the heroine obeyed her destiny, but what can be done to change her destiny? She still cannot jump out of the human category. She chose to fall in love, get married, have children, and divorce. It can even be said that she chose to lose her daughter, but she also gained in the whole process. The separation of joy, anger, sorrow, joy, sorrow and reunion, all kinds of emotional perception, this is the unique experience of being born, and only humans can get these experiences. On the surface, it seems to have experienced misfortune, but from a broader perspective, this may be a "gift" that only humans can get. (The word gift may be offensive, but please allow me to use it)
This is why I think of "Arrival" when I watch "I Lost My Body". Should I feel depressed and self-pity or even commit suicide after experiencing all kinds of misfortunes? I think the movie gives the answer. After being disabled, the boy Laufir climbed onto the roof of the building and jumped. Instead of committing suicide, he jumped onto the crane opposite and shouted loudly.
The boy gave the superficial answer in behavior, but the deeper answer lies in the independent right hand.
Implanting human consciousness in the hands, showing the experience of existence from the perspective of hands, touching the sand on the beach, playing the piano, listening to the wind, and feeling the warmth connected with people...
Because we have consciousness and wisdom, we are more aware of what we are doing and feel these experiences better than all living creatures, every breath, every chewing and swallowing, every hug, every sadness and tears...
This is not only the story of the right hand, but also the story of our being born to experience existence.
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