MY LIFE AS A COURGETTE

MY LIFE AS A COURGETTE (US Version: My Life As A Zucchini)

Director: Claude Barras. Cast: Erick Abbate, Romy Beckman, Susanne Blakeslee, Ellen Page.

Well, that was a surprise! Chosen by my little boy, we were all half expecting to see a film about talking vegetables… We could not have been more wrong!
There are different types of good animated films (and then obviously there are infinite types of bad ones!): those that use the means of animation to do things you couldn’t really do in real life. Pixar does that all the time: “Up”, which we saw yesterday had a flying home attached to balloons and talking dogs. And then you have those like “My Life as a Courgette” (“zucchini” in the American Version), which tell absolutely normal stories about very important things and grown up feelings, which children might not necessarilybe interested in watching were they not for the animation factor itself and the fact that the characters have big heads and big eyes and they might just looking appealing enough for them.
The is a beautiful, tender, poignant, funny and very wise film that takes on tough subject matters through the eyes of children. It is so warm, so alive, that adults will forget they’re watching stop-motion animation. Most of the details might go through a young viewer’s head, but the important issues bubbling over the surface about family, loneliness and friendship are all there for them to absorb.
A splendid little surprise with so much to offer in only 70 minutes!