I Lost My Body (J'ai perdu mon corps) is an animated French movie from 2019 that follows an episode in the life of a young Maghreban called Naoufel who lives in Paris. To me, he seems to be autistic (neurologically hypersensitive).
Naoufel is clumsy and chaotic and works as a pizza delivery guy. One evening, he arrives half an hour late and the pizza is a mess. Over the intercom, he speaks to the woman who’s been waiting for him and they end up having a conversation that just keeps on going, perhaps because Naoufel is honestly dejected rather than defensive and the young woman, Gabrielle, is very direct.
Naoufel lives with his derelict uncle and horrible cousin because his parents died in a car crash when he was a child. He’s lonely, passionate and obsessive enough that Gabrielle hanging out with him over an intercom is enough for him to decide to track her down at the library where she works.
Following her on the metro, he watches as some other guy sits down next to her, wishing that was him. This made me think of a scene in this Flemish movie from 2007 called Ben X, in which Ben, who is autistic, tracks down his online gaming friend ‘Scarlite’ and just sits next to her on the train. For him, it’s a profoundly wonderful experience.
Having followed her all the way back to her apartment, Gabrielle spots Naoufel peering into her uncle’s carpentry studio and confronts him. He pretends to be interested in a piece of paper advertising for an apprentice and manages to get hired by the uncle and moves into an apartment in the same block. Because they now run into each other regularly, he can get to know her. This kind of behaviour always prompts the nastiest people to cry out ‘Stalker!’. What Naoufel is is a romantic fantasist, but his devotion is unlikely to be reciprocated and may not even be tolerated.
In their first conversation over the intercom and then later when they have a chat at the library, Naoufel learns that Gabrielle longs to visit the North Pole and dreams of living in an igloo, so naturally he starts building her one made of wood on top of her building using the skills he’s acquired from training as a carpenter. His focus is on making her dream come true because his dream is her.
He brings her to the igloo and shares an idea he has that you might be able to change your fate by doing something extreme that you wouldn’t normally do, like jumping onto a crane. He then reveals to her that he’s the pizza delivery guy from before. It’s a bit heartbreaking when she’s angry with him for his elaborate covert pursuit of her but she does have a point that he was using her uncle, who is unwell, to get close to her. This is a shattering blow that sets off a chain of events that culminates with him accidentally cutting off his own hand with a motor saw.
Another autistic trait of Naoufel’s is his heightened appreciation of sounds. In flashbacks to his childhood, we see him recording all sorts of noises on a device given to him by his parents before they died. At night, he listens to recordings of his parents’ voices.
Throughout the movie, the scenes of Naoufel’s hard life and pursuit of Gabrielle are intercut with scenes of his severed hand escaping from a laboratory and making its way across Paris on a quest to reunite with its body. When the severed hand finally gets back to Naoufel, it’s unable to re-attach.
It’s not a movie that leaves you with much hope for the fulfilment or even survival of someone like Naoufel who is weighed down by so much loss and regret. A bit like Jen throwing herself off Wudan mountain at the end of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Naoufel makes his leap onto the crane. Also, Gabrielle hasn’t lost her fondness for him - he did pick a nice girl. These are the few crumbs of hope that the movie leaves you with.
