A bittersweet, gorgeously animated family film that looks like a watercolor painting come to life, Louis Clichy’s “Iron Boy” (“Le Corset”) is a solo feature debut whose sense of imagination is matched only by its sharp craft and the passionate care of its storytelling. Drawing from much of the director’s own life and proving all the more vibrant because of its specificity, it’s the type of film that already feels like it could become a new classic for animation lovers new and old.
That Clichy, who previously worked as an animator for Pixar on projects like “WALL-E” and “Up” as well as co-directing a couple of the “Asterix” films, is setting off on his own only makes it that more exciting that his first film already feels like the work of a confident, bold new voice. It proves that he’s not only up to the task of directing a film all his own, but that he and his animation team have a real skill for stylistic experimentation that you can only hope we’ll get to see more of from them. In an animation landscape that can often feel dominated by bigger studios like Pixar going back to what they’ve done before rather than trying anything formally or narratively new, Clichy offers a path forward. He shows us the wonder that can be found from striking out on your own and making something beautifully original.
Premiering Tuesday at the Cannes Film Festival, the film centers on 11-year-old Christophe, who himself already feels like a classic animated character. Wonderfully voiced by Gary Clichy, the director’s own son, he’s just like any other kid in that he is still finding his place in the world and is often full of energy that he doesn’t know what to do with. What makes him different is that he is also beginning to periodically tip over, even collapse, without always realizing that it’s happening. This is introduced via a hilarious opening montage involving class photos, but poor Christophe is not laughing about the fact that he’s now expected to wear an iron corset to keep himself upright.
While this is the beginning of what will become a grounded yet high-flying journey that’s bursting with more imaginative, almost magical breaks in reality, to start, the young lad’s reality is quite miserable. Despite the corset drastically restricting his freedom of movement, it’s something he’s expected to do day and night, even when he’s sleeping. His family, who runs a farm that’s going through increasingly hard times, doesn’t always seem to know how to be there for him.
Thus, he’s often left to his own devices and soon discovers there’s so much out there for him. Namely, he finds some of his first loves, one involving a person and the other involving the organ music being played at the local church. It’s there where the film starts to make beautiful music of its own just as Christophe starts to do so himself. The pains of reality remain threaded through every frame, but the simply stunning animation also makes it all feel magical.
Brought to life via Chinese inkbrush paintings, every frame is full of rich details while not being tied down by too much realism. Everything feels alive and textured, as if the town itself is something you could wander through and various drawings move to make it all feel like a dream. There are even recurring moments where gravity itself is upended as Christophe imagines his tilting as a way of also tilting the world around him. It takes the breath away just to see everything being thrown up in the air, especially in a flooring finale that pulls out all the stops. If anything, it’s a moving thesis statement for the film itself: sometimes, all you need is a different perspective to see the beauty of the world.
In the film’s animation, this beauty can come from embracing a hand-drawn approach rather than stiff yet familiar 3D techniques. In its plotting, it can come from telling a story about seeing everyday people, each of them full of complexities most others would overlook — be they the young girl trying to avoid paying the bus fare, with whom Christophe forms a deep yet fleeting bond; the elderly man who begins to teach him how to play the organ; or his own family that, for all their flaws, still deeply cares for him. Each character is overflowing with life that Clichy and his animation remain deeply attuned to.
While “Iron Boy” is not the best animated film of the festival, as that’s still “We Are Aliens,” it’s a mighty close second and a spectacular reintroduction to Clichy and company. That it is uninterested in talking down to potential younger viewers and instead invites them to reflect on the many complexities of life only makes it that much richer a work. It’s a film you can’t help falling in love with just as Christophe gradually does with his own life. In every beautiful song and stunning frame of animation, Clichy makes something truly magical from the everyday.
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