Tickling Giants reminded me of the F-Word series and how Nicole and Kristan rely on animation to supplement the story being told. In the F-Word, animation is used to illustrate things that may be hard to show. For example, in the first episode, they use animation to create a sequence about them moving and how they first met. In Tickling Giants, animation is used to connect the title of the documentary with the story being told of Bassem Youseff. Overrall, I found the documentary to be very informative and used the form of documentary well as it explored political unrest in Egypt through the rise of Bassem and his team. After the screening, however, I couldn’t stop thinking about the impact of the film. During the Q&A, Sara Taskler mentioned that Bassem and a few of the people who work with Al-Bernameg had left Egypt and moved to the U.S. and other places in fear of their lives. This got me thinking about documentary as a form of production and how while they can be informative, funny and entertaining for us to watch, they can also cause pain/suffering to others.
