Ma Vie de Courgette (My Life as a Zucchini)

Orphanhood has offered quite a few lovable film characters like Annie, Oliver Twist (right from the pages of Charles Dickens), and Hugo Cabret. Like all of them, Courgette is a kid that has had a tough life for somebody who is so young, but is redeemed because of his good heart that will take him to discover that a happy family can be found in uncommon places. It is, in general terms, a feel good film that in slightly more than a single hour tells a bittersweet story able to enchant both adults and kids.

The triumph of Ma Vie de Courgette, the Swiss animated film directed by Claude Barras, relies on its artisanal crafting; in a world of animated films heavily dominated by digital animation, this stop-motion technique feels fresh and genuine, offering a magical experience that is not designed to squeeze the wallets of the parents with a marketing campaign that create little fanatics eager to consume all the products that will be launched with the images of the cartoons. Here it's all about the story (screenplay by the fantastic Céline Sciamma, who showed us in Tomboy that she can go to very deep places of a child's mind), and about the beautiful way that they chose to tell it, creating this characters that resemble rag-dolls, and that inhabit a world that is beautiful in its simplicity.

It might not be the best film to portray the reality of orphanages around the world, but we can overlook that when we come across with such a vibrant film about childhood and friendship. Ma Vie de Courgette is a real gift, one that never condescends, but shows us that the world still has some kindness in it.