Louis Clichy's IRON BOY disappointed me. The slice of life of a young man in the late 80's in a familing communnity didn't work for me. The tale of a boy who has to wear a brace to remain upright, finds love, music and is clueless about the families financial struggles worked in moments but never came together.
The problem with the film comes from several places. The first and most glaring is that Christophe, the boy at the center is a complete and total ass. He's a sweet kid, but he is so f-ing clueless. He needs to be clueless for him to do the things he does, such as wreck his families tractor, lash out and break the pedal on a pipe organ and do any number of other things that should have gotten him grounded after beating so severe they would have put him in the hospital. It's not surprising that he is shocked that his families farm is being sold because his head is so far up his own ass.
The other big problem is that there are these huge chasms of things unsaid or undone or unaddressed until they are. It begins with Christophe's physical weakness, which as the film begins has clearly been going on for ages but no one addressed until he crashed the tractor. Why not? It goes on from there as no one seems to talk to each other about anything so that Chrsitophe doesn't know about the impending financial doom or the family really know about his musical training. Every sequence seems kind of unconnected to any other, as if some one removed all the connecting material. WHile the sequences are brilliant unto themselves that don't fit together in anyway that actually makes sense.
Speaking of which, what about Christophe's seeming flight of fantasy where he sees the world skewed and destroyed when he is angry. His head tilts, the world shifts and then suddenly everyone is staring at him as if to wonder what had gotten into him-- except that at the end of the film his "super power" is real and he seemingly wrecks the the grain station. What the hell?
None of this hangs together.
On the other hand the sequences are great. If you watch each sequence, unconnected to the others they are magical. I especially love the kiss sequence which gave me goosebumps. Every piece works unto itself... they just don't tie together. Way too much is unsaid- in the absolute wrong way.
Watching this film I was struck by one overriding thought, and that director Ken Frank should have directed this. Ken makes small micro budgeted films about families and he has this incredible knack for keeping the bits tied tightly together. Yes, you can have a flight of fantasy, but Ken keeps it rooted in reality. In all of his films all of the plot threads are there on screen, nothing is missing. I think Ken should have directed this film because while I think that all of the bits are good, Ken would have known how to tie them all together so we were all sobbing at the end. IRON BOY is a story Ken could have told had he has the budget, however Ken would not have let let the threads ger out of hand or the chracters seem off, especially Christophe.
While I don't think IRON BOY is bad, I'm just kind of lost as to why it is getting the acclaim or a spot at the New York Film Festival. It feels like it's an animated discovery made by people who only know American animation and anime and realize that there are other better films out there (hasn't anyone programming the festival gone to to New York International Children's Film Festival?).
(And note: The subtitles for the film tranlate merde as all sorts of things but never shit)
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