Having passed through the Cannes and Annecy festivals, where it received the prize for best animated film, “Linda wants chicken!” comes out on our screens. Behind this title which makes you hungry hides a beautiful adventure against a backdrop of memory and death.
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Recommended from 6 years old
Once upon a time – No, it wasn’t Linda who took her mother Paulette’s ring! This punishment is completely unfair! And now Paulette would do anything to be forgiven, even a chicken with peppers, she who doesn’t know how to cook. But how can you find a chicken on a general strike day?
From a henhouse to a watermelon truck, from a zealous cop to an allergic truck driver, from a grandmother to a flood, Paulette and her daughter will set off in search of the chicken, leading the whole “Linda gang” and ultimately the whole neighborhood. But Linda doesn’t know that this chicken, once cooked so well by her father, is the key to her lost memory. By the way, does anyone know how to kill a chicken?
What they will love – Linda, already. A young heroine with a strong character, stubborn as children of her age can be, and to whom it is very difficult not to become attached. From the opening credits, which contains the key to the story. When she is unfairly punished by her mother. Or in her attempts to finally obtain this dish of which she dreams and which gives its title to the film.
It’s then difficult not to succumb to the visual style. As in The Girl Without Hands, his previous feature film (made without Chiara Malta, his accomplice here), Sébastien Laudenbach combines simplicity with experimentation. And each character has their own color (and by extension their personality and voice).
Linda is thus yellow, her favorite color. And the whole thing sometimes resembles a rainbow, which can be very practical for working on children’s memory: if they don’t remember the name of a character, perhaps its color will come back to them more easily in head.
Gebeka Memory in images
What may worry them – Memory is precisely one of the strong themes of Linda Wants Chicken! whose amusing title contrasts with the emotional heart of the story. Yes, there is a lot of humor and even a little action. But this dish that the young heroine requests is the one that her father made for her before his death, which occurred when she was still a baby and thinks she has no memory of him.
Even when approached tactfully in animated films, as here in its opening credits, death can often be a source of anxiety for young people (thank you Bambi and The Lion King). But it will be a good opportunity to broach the subject with them, and to talk about it more broadly to evoke these deceased people whom they knew very little and whom they do not remember. Or very little.
There is also talk of a general strike and demonstration. And some children may be distressed by the relationship between Linda and her mother at the beginning of the story. Or the way in which the young heroine is unfairly punished, and called a thief and a liar, for supposedly taking a ring. But the second part, lighter in appearance, will help them overcome these passages.
Gebeka
Linda facing her mother
What they will keep deep inside them – Hunger perhaps. Because even if it is not very long, at 76 minutes, there is a lot of talk about cooking. So pay close attention to when you see him, otherwise you’ll hear stomachs rumbling.
Rich in color in more ways than one, Linda wants chicken! offers them a visual fireworks display and a funny and lively adventure (there is no doubt that the policeman doubled by Esteban will trigger a few bursts of laughter). And this story about childhood wounds that we think are buried can help put words to subjects that are difficult to discuss with them.
Beyond its visual and narrative qualities, it is perhaps also for this reason that the feature film won the Cristal, the most important prize at the last Annecy Festival, in June.