The Girl Without Hands (La jeune fille sans mains) [Sub: Eng]

Writer-director (and co-editor) Sèbastien Laudenbach strives and largely succeeds in his effort to produce a finished animated film with the vivacity and evocative power of a rough sketchbook.

This striking animated adaption of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale makes a lean and dark story feel sweeping and warm.

Girl is a welcome reminder that animation doesn't have to be synonymous with realistically rendered CG, but can be a means of artistic expression as uniquely personal as a signature.

Laudenbach's style is haunting. Some of his artwork stops you in your tracks. What he does best is create a palpable sense of dread without pushing, without tilting into melodrama.

Although this film's style is soft and colorful, it does not rub out the emotional sharpness of a story dealing with betrayal, suicide and death.

A Brothers Grimm tale is given a rather grim if beautifully rendered makeover in The Girl Without Hands (La Jeune fille sans mains), which marks the feature debut of French animation director Sebastien Laudenbach.

There's an old fashioned, storybook quality to this that suits the nature of the tale. It's elegantly realised and has plenty of appeal for adults as well as its target audience.

As we continue to see animation progress and become more and more realistic, the French animated film The Girl Without Hands or La Jeune Fille sans mains is a reminder that the medium can be just as compelling with simple and evocative strokes

The distinctive animation is vibrantly colored, with hand-drawn characters and set pieces that are more sketch-like silhouettes than intricately detailed landscapes and people.

With dialogue and characterization at a minimum, the real draw of "The Girl Without Hands" is the visuals. The animation looks as if Laudenbach's personal sketchbook has erupted into life on the screen, with impressionistic flourishes.

The deceptively simple illustrations are evocative and painterly.

The kind of thing that cinema is uniquely capable of, and animation is uniquely capable of within cinema.