Animation lends itself to autobiography in surprising ways. Are we more vulnerable to the stories of others when they are told via cartoons? Not merely so, I think. Animation isn’t just for kids! In these short films, animation doesn’t merely call the viewer (or the filmmaker) back to more innocent sensibilities for autobiographical purposes. The visual landscape of this genre is open to many fantastical, dreamlike possibilities, and the contrast between the animation and the stripped-down audio narration sometimes used in these films makes for a fascinating juxtaposition. Narratives–when offered in a plainspoken way as they are in My First Crush below–are compelling on there own, but become even more so when we witness how the animator chooses to carry them with colorful characters and visual movement.
See previous post for more: Autobiographical Animation 1.0
1. An Abstract Autobiography. Dancing, spiraling spots tell the story of a life.
Brian K. Friesen 