Professional MoronI Lost My Body: Striking French Animated Drama With a Hand 🤚
J’ai perdu mon corps (I Lost My Body) is a 2019 French animated film. This was directed by Jérémy Clapin, who adapted the work from the novel Happy Hand by Guillaume Laurant, with French animation company Xilam Animation helming the project.
It won various awards in 2019 and even got an Oscar nomination, but rarely seems to get any mention amongst the best modern animated movies. Well, we’re here to shine a light on it and this thing was excellent.
The Personal Growth Within I Lost My Body
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFiv6uoWYXU&w=723&h=407]There’s a lot of complaining online from misery guts that films were better in “the good old days”. We’ve watched a big bunch of modern films so far in 2026 and the quality has been outstanding. It’s really insulting to the talent out there to dismiss so many of these great films.
I Lost My Body is a great example. This one passed us by in 2019, but it really stands out as an inventive and emotionally intensive fantasy drama. Do keep in mind, too, this is no film for kids. The themes are very adult.
Not least with the beginning, where a severed hands goes on a journey across Parisian suburbs.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xPGZZmbZM0&w=723&h=407]Viewers find out the hand belongs to a young man called Naoufel (voiced by Dev Patel for the English sub, Hakim Faris for the French) and the rest of the story follows the present day interweaving with his past.
That and the journey of his hand across Paris.
Naoufel is from Morocco and his parents died in a car crash Naoufel feels responsible for. He’d aspired to be an astronaut, but has to live with his vacant uncle and now works as a pizza delivery driver.
A chance encounter with a customer called Gabrielle gives him a new sense of hope. But he starts obsessing over her, trying to win her romantic interests through increasingly desperate means.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0dC8WqLfsk&w=723&h=407]It’s a short film, but one that consistently impresses. With flashes of dark humour, and sides towards a tragic past, I Lost My Body ultimately builds towards an uplifting finale.
One of Naoufel accepting a disability, overcoming a pointless infatuation, and moving on to a new phase of his life. Not a coming-of-age narrative, but one of important personal growth and developmental acceptance.
Add into the animation style, which is very striking, often beautiful across the concise 81 minute film. Xilam Animation handled that and full credit to them on some fine work.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqf1IWCvBx4&w=723&h=407]With plenty of originality and an unnerving drive to fully explore its narrative themes, this was a big winner with us. Again, it’s genuinely life-affirming. Director Jérémy Clapin noted:
“[It’s] an urban, modern fairy tale about destiny and resilience. It tells us that to change things, we must surprise ourselves, dare to do something unusual, stray away from the straight and narrow.”
A fine mindset indeed and an impressive piece of work and we hope it finds cult classic status. Seven years after launch, it deserves it.
The Production of I Lost My Body
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKe6mBQmqCs&w=723&h=407]Netflix acquired the rights to the film after its premiere at Cannes Film Festival in 2019. It didn’t get a full cinematic launch as a result, which is a shame. But it’s there on Netflix should you want to watch it.
However, despite a limited cinematic release in France it still made $1.1 million.
I Lost My Body also had a long old production run, taking some seven years to complete. As with the Oscar winning and brilliant Flow (2024), the animation was completed in the free software Blender.
Dan Levy worked on the film’s soundtrack, which features an official preview video on YouTube. Have a listen! It’s got some melodic, ambient pieces in there.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0sB4qmt1ak&w=723&h=407] #animated #Animation #Cinema #Films #France #FrenchFilms #ILostMyBody #JAiPerduMonCorps #JérémyClapin #Lifestyle #Paris #XilamAnimation
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