''The Girl Without Hands'' (french: La Jeune Fille sans mains) is a 2016 French

animated Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most ani ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

directed, written, edited, and animated by Sébastien Laudenbach in his feature debut; Laudenbach animated the entire film on his own. The film is based on the

Brothers Grimm The Brothers Grimm ( or ), Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859), were a brother duo of German academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers, and authors who together collected and published folklore. They are among the ...

fairy tale of the same name and stars the voices of

Anaïs Demoustier Anaïs Demoustier (; born Anaïs Aude Marie Michèle Demoustier; 29 September 1987) is a French actress. She has appeared in more than fifty films since 2000. Personal life During the filming of ''Marguerite & Julien'', Demoustier began dating ...

and

Jérémie Elkaïm Jérémie Elkaïm (born 29 August 1978) is a French actor, screenwriter and film director best known for his role in ''Presque rien'' (US title: ''Come Undone'', 2000). In the film, he plays Mathieu, a troubled, emotionally fragile teen who fi ...

. It premiered in the ACID section at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival and played in competition at the 2016

Annecy International Animated Film Festival The Annecy International Animation Film Festival (french: Festival international du film d'animation d'Annecy, officially abbreviated in English as the Annecy Festival, or simply Annecy) was created in 1960 and takes place at the beginning of J ...

, where it received the Jury Distinction award.

Plot

The

Devil A devil is the personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conceptions of ...

appears to a miller and offers to make him rich if he sells him "what is behind your mill". The miller returns home to find liquid

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...

flowing through his mill, but discovers that his daughter had been behind the mill, playing in an apple tree. After years of luxury, the Devil reappears to collect the young girl, but finds her too clean to take. He orders the family to confine the young girl to the apple tree, guarded by dogs which then maul her mother to death when she tries to help her. When the Devil returns, he finds that the young girl had kept her hands clean. He angrily orders the miller to cut off her hands, and the young girl consents. Even then, the young girl makes her arm stumps clean with just her teardrops, and the Devil still cannot collect her. The young girl angrily chooses to leave the mill. After wandering the forest, the young girl finds pears growing in a garden. She tries to reach them, but is unable to cross a strong-flowing river to get to them. The goddess of the river rescues her and takes her to the garden, telling her that a prince owns the garden. The prince and his gardener servant welcome the young girl to their castle. Eventually, the prince and the young girl fall in love, with the prince giving her two

prosthetic In medicine, a prosthesis (plural: prostheses; from grc, πρόσθεσις, prósthesis, addition, application, attachment), or a prosthetic implant, is an artificial device that replaces a missing body part, which may be lost through trau ...

hands made of gold as a wedding gift. The prince has to leave to lead his army to war, leaving the now pregnant young girl in the gardener's care. She gives birth to a healthy son, though she finds her golden hands useless in handling the baby. The gardener sends the joyful news to the prince, but the Devil replaces the message with a note saying she had given birth to a monster, instead. The prince sends a reply saying that he still stands by the young girl and their son, but the Devil changes that message, as well, to a note ordering the execution of the young girl and her son. Appalled, the gardener lets the young girl and her son escape, instead, handing her a bag of magic seeds. The young girl follows the river to its source, where the goddess tells her of an abandoned house where they can live. The young girl and her son prosper in the house, living off the food grown from the seeds. She abandons her useless golden hands in the river. The prince finally returns after losing the war. The gardener initially pretends to have carried out the executions, but then tells the truth when the prince tells him that he never wrote that message. The prince then sets out on a quest to find the young girl and their son. After many years, he finds the mill, finding that her father ultimately hanged himself, and finding the remains of the young girl's hands. He also finds the golden hands in the river, and follows the river to the house. Still thinking he wants to kill them, the young girl attacks the prince with an ax, only to realize that she now has new hands to hold the ax. The prince explains that the note was fake, but just then, the Devil in a raven form attacks their son. He then morphs into a pig form he had used all through the film. The young girl uses the ax to kill the pig, and the Devil finally gives up on trying to take her. The prince and the young girl decide to stay neither in the house nor the castle, but for the family to find new adventure.

Voice cast

as the Young Girl *

as the Prince *

Philippe Laudenbach Philippe Laudenbach (born 31 January 1936) is a French actor. He appeared in more than one hundred films since 1963. Career Nephew of Pierre Fresnay (born Peter Laudenbach), Philippe is formed to the French National Academy of Dramatic Arts. He ...

as the Devil * Olivier Broche as the Father *

Françoise Lebrun Françoise Lebrun (born 18 August 1944) is a French actress. She has appeared in many movies, and is especially known for her role as Veronika in Jean Eustache's ''The Mother and the Whore'' (1973). She has worked with other directors including ...

as the Mother *

Sacha Bourdo Aleksander "Sacha" Burdo (born 8 January 1962 in Oryol, Russia) is a Russian actor. He has appeared in films including '' The Science of Sleep'' (2006) by Michel Gondry and ''Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a villag ...

as the Gardener *

Elina Löwensohn Elina Löwensohn (born 11 July 1966) is a Romanian-American actress. She had roles in the films '' Simple Men'' (1992), ''Schindler's List'' (1993), '' Amateur'' (1994), '' Nadja'' (1994) and '' The Wisdom of Crocodiles'' (1998). Life and caree ...

as the Goddess

References

External links

Official Shellac site

Official GKIDS site
* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Girl Without Hands, The 2016 films 2016 computer-animated films 2010s French animated films 2010s French-language films Animated films based on Grimms' Fairy Tales 2016 directorial debut films