The upfront acknowledgement in My Life as a Courgette that many childhoods play out with nary a hint of magic, sparkle or sugar to help the medicine go down feels unorthodox and bracing.
The movie can be funny and heartbreaking at once-Zucchini's only keepsake of his mother is an empty beer can-though in the end what registers most is the children's resilience when "there's nobody left to love us."
It may not sound like it, but calling this barely 70-minute Swiss stop-motion film "heavy" - as in substantial and almost swollen with feeling - is a true compliment.
Colourful, emotive and nuanced, My Life As a Courgette is a Swiss/French stop-motion film that doesn't shy away from the sobering realities of many children in care homes.
The sins of the fathers (and mothers) are visited upon the children in Claude Barras's brief, stop-motion tale of little ones finding love among the ruins.
It is, admittedly, cute and tender, a smooth and sensitive approach to the lives of abandoned children who are thinking and dealing with issues they should simply never have to contemplate.
Seeing the world through a child's eyes can be pretty eye-opening. Watching My Life as a Zucchini, the altogether marvelous and Oscar-nominated stop-action animated film by director Claude Barras, that world is one you will not soon forget.
