Rebecca's Thoughts

I Lost My Body is a 2019 French animated film. In all honestly, it is probably one of the best movies I’ve ever seen and everything about it is amazing. The story follows a severed hand that escapes the morgue and is trying to reunite with its body. Told through a series of flashbacks, the story flips between the hand’s journey through Paris and the events that led to it becoming a severed hand. 

This movie relies on speculation to not only make the story work but also ask the question as to how and why this hand is sentient and moving through Paris. This is not something ever addressed in the movie, and I think that is probably for the better. I think that it adds not only to the emotion of the movie but also to the very open ending that it has. 

When putting this movie into a genre I think that there is a complex interaction between what the movie wants to be and what the audience wants. I think the idea of genres is already a declarative construct. These genres are mutually agreed upon by the people of the day and therefore are up for debate and constant change. I do think, however, that some aspects remain and are presented as the “Bread and Butter” of the genre. Whether this be themes, aspects, or tropes, these are designed to create and instill a vibe that people can point at and call science fiction. I think because of this, genres have become this weird grey area where they are well-defined yet also subjective. 

This aligns with Terrone’s idea of “Genre-as-clusters” as many works tangentially belong together and are connected through different ideas. Terrone presented this idea in his article Science Fiction as a Genre. In the article he looks at what makes a genre and the pre-requisites or common features found within science fiction. When looking at the article I think that many of the ideas about genre, especially “genre-as-clusters” can be used to the extreme and can create more room for misinterpretation and misrepresentation of work. This also blurs the line on who can declare something a genre.

Can an author write Science Fiction or is that something that can only be bestowed upon them after the fact? This isn’t to say that people can’t write something with the intent of making something science fiction rather brings up the idea of whether things can become and un-become a genre. If something from the past previously considered science fiction due to its contents and innovations becomes reality, can it still be considered Science Fiction? Additionally, if something was designed with the intent to not be science fiction but shares many of the same themes, ideas, or things within the cluster of Science Fiction then would it still be considered Sci-Fi? 

The movie I Lost My Body is, at its heart, a fantasy adventure movie. The movie, a journey through Paris, is pretty much as adventure as a movie can get. The same can be said for the fantasy aspects of the movie. As far as I know, severed hands don’t move or go on adventures? This aspect gives the movie not only a sense of adventure but also solidifies its stance among fantasy content. To go back to the idea of genre as clusters, Terrone sees them as being a group of shared features that define and categorize a genre. I think the adventure aspects of the movie are self-explanatory. The fantasy aspects I think, although obvious, are more nuanced and abstract. 

After watching the movie, I’m not convinced that the hand is real and truly had this adventure. The main theme of the movie is about loss and grief. I think that the hand could easily be a metaphor or symbolic of one getting over their grief and accepting loss. I think the idea of a sentient severed hand fits into previous tropes among fantasy (and even sci-fi) literature. 

I think a large part of Torrone’s ‘genre of clusters’ is the idea of cultural and societal acceptance. If people believe and think that a piece of media is a certain genre, then that’s what it is. This also puts some of the onus onto the creator of the film to label it how they wish to.