My Life As A Courgette, or My Life As A Zucchini – depending on where in the world you inhabit – began its slow worldwide roll-out after debuting at Cannes last May to critical acclaim and fanfare, maintaining a rare 100% approval on Rotten Tomatoes throughout its global release. The French-Swiss stop-motion animation only just pulls itself over the 60 minute feature-length mark – but in that short-time, it packs an enormously powerful punch with its vivid colours and dorky-looking character creating a stark contrast to its dark, very often grim story, sobering themes, and the messages on childhood trauma on display.
Icare, preferred to be known by his mother’s nickname for him, ‘Courgette’, is taken to an orphanage after a tragic event at home that leaves him alone and parentless. Earning a reputation for his silence, Courgette must learn to adapt to his new environment and soon discovers the heartbreaking circumstances that has lead his new-found family to where they are today – damaged, but together.
Despite the wacky title and funny-looking characters, My Life As A Courgette is not a light watch. In the opening sequence alone, a turn of events so drastic, dramatic, and unconventional for an animation occurs that very rapidly asserts the tone of the piece: a sombre, funereal atmosphere hangs over Courgette, with a spark of hope and optimism, every so often delivering respite and providing balance. I was pleasantly astounded at just how dark the film was willing to go – it’s absolutely astonishing and completely refreshing to see such bravery in an animation.
“We’re all the same. There’s nobody left to love us”, one character in My Life As A Courgette tells us – just one of many moments that catches its audience off-guard and makes it feel like the world is grinding to a halt. Just think about that for a second: such hard-hitting, bewildering content has never been uttered in a film this accessible to young children before and will likely never be executed with quite the compassion it has been here. The power of those words alone (and there are more than a handful that elicit a similar reaction) is confounding.
Poetic and soul-destroying, is it any wonder My Life As A Courgette pushes its audience to tears?
Poetic and soul-destroying
It is Celine Sciamma, Claude Barras, German Zullo and Morgan Navarro’s bravery with the screenplay, and their general willingness to chart unexplored waters that makes Courgette so successful. Under consideration are dark, towering themes and issues; blame, guilt and self-loathing; the lonely and the naive targeted by a dangerous, abusive world; figuring your own path and finding your own corner; the importance of family when family does not exist around you.
Taboo subjects like these are bound to inspire a barrage of questions from inquisitive minds – but the four-strong writing team tackle the troubling issues raised head on, leaving enough room for personal reflection, consideration and maybe – just maybe – a change to instigate in your life.
These ideas are delivered to us through the damaged young characters that populate the piece. Your heart breaks for the pre-adolescents at the Orphanage who have already experienced such difficulty – but their story is never wholly defined by their trauma, acting only as a backdrop to texture their character, their experiences, and your understanding of them.
Building and developing each substantially, every character is provided a story: a root to grow from. You understand the lives they have experienced, and maybe get an insight into the lives they will go on to lead, all in just 66 minutes – all because the writing team are so committed to delivering their stories in a powerful way.
From abusive relations, manslaughter and substance abuse, the young characters found in My Life, even at such a young age, have seen more than most of us can begin to fathom. It is that striking juxtaposition – between childhood naivety, fragility, vulnerability and the harshness of an unforgiving world and the horrors they have witnessed – that provides the film with so much emotion, poignancy and heart. This is a truly special picture.
Truly special
These masterful, crucial contrasts are emphasised perfectly through the art form utilised to bring them to life. There is a notable fragility, gentleness even, about stop-motion clay animation: perfectly appropriate to the tender narrative and thematic content – a sophisticated reflection of a child’s frangible mind. Heightened by Barras‘ direction (and ambition), the power of stop-motion is used to tremendous effect here, highlighting the idea of contrast that is so crucial to Courgette’s competence.
Barras‘ abundant ambition allows all of this to work. It could have so easily failed, wound up as a self-important, conceited project, drowning in a pompous air of infallibility – but it does not. He keeps it on track stunningly, all through his determination to create real, human characters, stories and pain out of his lumps of clay. It is an unmitigated, bold and brave success. Humanity seeps into these once inanimate objects – a figment of his imagination – and becomes something incredible and inspiring.
It’s not all doom and gloom in Courgette, thankfully. A good helping of humour helps balance the heavy thematic content: some risqué discussions on sex are jaw-dropping for their existence in a supposedly kid-friendly animation, but they also expose that mindset of someone so young experiencing something explicit, beyond their years content. These stark discussions, again, feed into the sharp contrast that allows Courgette to excel.
It is beneficial that the film is so beautiful to look at. To counterbalance the thematic and narrative darkness is the vivid colours and lush design splashed across the world. The characters are lovingly hand-crafted, dopey-looking and infectiously charming, a pleasure to spend your time in. You can see the attention to detail in every setting and set piece, aligned with the unique design of each individual character.
Largely unknown, the cast voicing these stunning characters are impressive. While I was completely reliant on the subtitles to understand what they were saying, the tone and texture of their voices perfectly suited the characteristics of each, allowing their emotion to shine through with their performance. Truly excellent.
I can only imagine that native speakers will find even more beauty in Courgette.
In Conclusion: My Life As A Courgette
A film of both simplicity (fractionally over an hour, small budget) and complexity (mountainous, scary themes and events), My Life As A Courgette works because of its balance and contrast. The dialogue and language is touching, the characters are well-developed (the kids anyway: the adults lack some nuance) and its overall influence and power is indisputable.
My Life As A Courgette isn’t a kid’s film – it’s a family film, fit for viewing together and evoking discussion, reflection and consideration. It’s a difficult watch, tackling a multitude of towering themes and ideas, including abuse, abandonment, grief, and coping, but does so with so much care and thought. Courgette is admirable, beautiful animation-making with compelling, eloquent ideas defined by the heart and compassion that brings this world to life.
How many times did you cry during My Life As A Courgette?
My Life As A Courgette is out everywhere now. It arrives on DVD in the UK on September 18th.
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