Directed by Sébastien Laudenbach. In French, with English subtitles. Rating unavailable

Putting the grim back in Grimm Brothers, this deceptively simple animated effort turns a lesser-known fairy tale into an edgy meditation on gendered views of nature and society.

A first feature for French short-maker Sébastien Laudenbach, The Girl Without Hands uses loose, gestural lines and smooth watercolour washes to follow the travails—and eventual triumph—of the title character. Anaïs Demoustier (Bird People) gives voice to the unnamed heroine, virtuous daughter of a miller currently cursed by drought. When a mysterious stranger (voiced by the director’s father, Philippe Laudenbach) offers to help restart his grinding wheels, he appears to be asking for the miller’s big apple tree in exchange. Actually, what he wants is the daughter who loves that tree and spends her days in its enveloping branches.

After the river starts running again—with gold, in fact—the miller can hardly renege, even after he realizes his huge mistake. He agrees to follow through over the protestations of his heartbroken wife (Françoise Lebrun, The Mother and the Whore). The devilish stranger can’t take such virginal prey, it seems, so Dad tries to dirty her up. Even then, constant tears keep her hands clean, causing the brutal part of the title to come true.

You don’t have to be Bruno Bettelheim (remember The Uses of Enchantment?) to figure out what’s going on in this family, especially if you subtract the satanic foofaraw from the story. Some versions of this tale, which has origins on three continents, find the handless maiden rescued by a benevolent king, who fashions fresh appendages from precious metal. Laudenbach opts for a more age-appropriate prince who, despite his outward sensitivity, can’t avoid the siren song of war. This affords that devilish male spirit several more chances to mess with things, and the movie, in contrast to its gentle artistry, is unsparing in its vision of human privation. And it’s pretty frank about sexuality and bodily functions in general. Disney it ain’t. But its view of the ceaseless struggle for female agency depicts a kind of arms race we’re only starting to recognize.