After watching tonight’s film I had an interesting realization about the affordances of animation. Usually a director will have a solid amount of freedom and control to shape the movie and push it in whatever direction they want. The director can dress the characters, have some say in what characters are chosen, they can choose the set and all of the things that go in it. Within the accommodations of our world the director can really do whatever they want. However I find it interesting that with animation the director can create a whole new world. They can take the image from their head and really create it in the film. I really saw this in the film we watched tonight, especially in the way some of the scenes were set up, for instance when her father was telling the story of how the Shah came into power and the world took a puppeteer and comical turn. I also liked the point that was made in the after-film discussion about how sometimes when the film is set in a dangerous or hard to film place, such as Iran was during the time this film was made, animation can be used as a substitute. I really got a first hand experience of the affordances of animation tonight.
I agree, and I also think that animation is a key way for directors to emphasize the emotions of their characters, as well as the impressions certain events in the movie have on them. One of the scenes I especially liked that demonstrated this was the scene in which Marjane comes home to see that her neighbor’s building had been bombed. When she sees the hand sticking out of the rubble, everything else fades away while she screams, and then she fades to black as well. While she is fading away, her image becomes less like Marjane and more like the face from the famous painting “The Scream”. The allusion tells audiences exactly how much the sight affected her, and captures the profound emotions that the painting has come to represent. The fade to black of the background and then her show exactly how she experienced the traumatic sight.