30 Animated Movies That Are Not for Children

Jérémy Clapin’s French-language fantasy drama I Lost My Body is the kind of film a street cat might make if you gave it a budget and taught it to use Blender.

Adapted from Happy Hand by Guillaume Laurant (who also co-wrote the screenplay for the film), I Lost My Body is set in Paris, where a severed hand makes its journey to the city to reunite with its owner, Naoufel, a young immigrant with eyes for his pizza delivery patron Gabrielle.

The movie often favours sounds over dialogue, making full use of the noises of the city, set to a synthesised soundtrack from The Dø’s Dan Levy. Levy’s score relies not on the kind of throbbing, pulsing John Carpeneter sounds that might have turned the story of a reanimated hand into a horror, but blends clean synth with organ and orchestral sounds, favouring stretched notes and a melancholy but hopeful tone that carries the film’s action from point to point, driving the dramatic and romantic beats.

It’s not complicated, extreme, or transgressive, but it hefts the same weight as a charming piece of literature, and rewards anyone with the patience to see it through.