21 May 2017
“The Girl Without Hands (La Jeune Fille Sans Mains)”---French Animation Film Festival
Release Year: 2016
Country: France
Director: Sebastien Laudenbach
Cast: Anais Dumoustier, Jeremie Elkaim
Location I watched: Alliance Francaise
This year, Alliance Francaise organised the 6th French Animation Film Festival. 6 films were screened, but I only managed to watch this film. “The Girl Without Hands” is adapted from the Brothers Grimm’s famous fairy tale. It was a very good film, but unfortunately the audience was quite small. Perhaps it was because of its M18 rating even though it was a fairy tale adaptation.
The touch of “The Girl Without Hands” is like a watercolor sketch. The images are simple drawings, without details. The drawing is constantly flowing and new images appear, one after another. Even a fixed shot is like a beautiful sketch. Furthermore when the shot starts moving, we realize that is why animation is called animation. Images in this film are literary animated. For example, after the protagonist, the girl, lost her hands, she wanders in the mountains and finally finds a garden the prince owns. The garden at night, illuminated with twinkling lights is an incredible enchanting scene.
The story basically follows the original Grimm’s fairy tale. God (in this film, the God of the river) sometimes helps the girl and some miracles also happen. However, the film takes more time showing the girl’s hardship and endeavors. The touch of the images is gentle and has less details, but the girl’s struggle to live---without her hands, how she changes her baby’s diaper or how she sows vegetable seeds and so on---is elaborately described. As the result, the film became a story about a pure girl, while receiving divine favour, carves out her life for herself and finally gets happiness in her own “hands”. The content, not just the visual images, is beautiful. It is an elegantly powerful film. (28 June 28, 2017)
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| The ending song, "Wild Girl" is also beautiful. |
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