Article #237647

Based on a 2000 novella, this sweet animation follows a young girl who wakes from a vegetative state on the verge of feral, but begins to bond with others after an intervention by her grandmother

This tender and sweet animation from film-makers Maïlys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han is an involving, poignant study of early childhood; how fragile it is, and how strong you feel yourself to be to have outlived or surpassed it. It is based on the autobiographical novella The Character of Rain by Belgian author Amélie Nothomb, published in 2000.

Loïse Charpentier voices the role of Amélie, a little girl living in Kobe, Japan, with her Belgian family in the late 60s; mum, dad and older brother and sister. Until the age of three, she was in a persistent vegetative state, but was miraculously jolted free of it by a terrifying earthquake; yet she emerges quarrelsome and almost feral, to the despair of her parents. That is until her elegant grandmother Claude (Cathy Cerda) comes to visit and gives her a piece of narcotically delicious white Belgian chocolate, which causes Amélie to bloom into a lovely, biddable child who adores her Japanese nanny Nishio-san (Victoria Grosbois).