bully

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Anina (Uruguay) – A Whimsical Animation With A Unique School Punishment

Anina Film Difficulty Ranking: 2

Do you miss the animations and story books you used to read as a kid? Anina will bring back your childhood with whimsical animation and a heart-warming story. If you have young ones or you’re young at heart, this one’s for you.

Why Watch Anina?
  • For anyone with kids, or your young at heart
  • To see it’s unique style which may remind you of a storybook
  • To hear the ‘worst names’ from Uruguay (Anina hates her name which is read the same forwards and backwards)
  • It’s here on YouTube (if you can understand Spanish)
The Breakdown

Anina starts at the end of a school day. Some parents are crowding round the entrance of the school waiting for their kids under their umbrellas. Some of the other kids are waiting at a bus stop nearby. It’s obvious who the protagonist is as she’s the only one with hair that stands out against the palette of grey, beige, and brown. Her hair is red and sticks out from her head. She’s Anina, our 10 year old protagonist.

You’ll notice the look of this animation is different to the Disney and Pixar films you’ve become used to. Firstly it’s 2D rather than the 3D used in most modern animation. Secondly, it’s uses a flat colour palette with no vibrant colours. As a result, Anina looks more like a children’s storybook rather than a vibrant Pixar film. This made it feel more whimsical and endearing.

One of my favourite stylistic moments occurs when she has a childhood memory. In the memory, the animation becomes even more basic than in the present: her facial expressions are less detailed and the background is plainer. It reflects the memories we all have, in which the detail is eroded by time.

Image result for anina

Conclusion

Like the best family films, Anina combines humour with a beautiful message about the family and friends. In addition, it’s unique animation evokes a nostalgia for children’s storybooks. If you’ve got young kids, or you still feel like a kid inside, Anina is worth a watch.

For more whimsical animation check out Song of the Sea by Tomm Moore. Also, no matter what age you are, watch Princess Mononoke by Hayao Miyazaki.

2

Tears of Joy (Saint Kitts & Nevis) – Bullying Isn’t a Game

Tears of Joy

Tears of Joy Film Difficulty Ranking: 1

Tears of Joy is a 15 minute reminder that bullying isn’t a game. It is designed to trigger those who have experienced being bullied and to scare anyone related to the victims. However, its scare tactic methods prioritize melodrama over a real exploration of the subtleties of bullying.

From: Saint Kitts & Nevis, North America
Watch: YouTube, Mubi
Next: Where I Come From, Shaina, Hulhudhaan

Tears of Joy – The Breakdown

Similar to Where I Come From and Shaina, Tears of Joy feels like a throw-back public service announcement. Its message is very clear (bullying is bad) and it uses intense examples to convey it. These examples take up the entire short film and are designed to evoke anger/horror in those who view the bullying, and sympathy and sadness for the victim. However, the intensity of the examples, and obviousness of the bullying, out-shouts what is often subtle and concealed. The bullying is so clear to us that it’s hard to believe that the adults choose to overlook it, especially as it appears to be every student against Joy. There’s no attempts on the school kids to hide it, so it feels unrealistic that they’re not caught and reprimanded. Meanwhile, Tears of Joy also infers that bullying is brutal and obvious, ignoring its more subtle guises.

Joy and the lead bully do get brief scenes with their parents for brief moments of character development, but this isn’t enough to justify the direction each character takes. Almost every scene of this short film is taken up by footage of school kids bullying Joy, or Joy crying alone (which she does very well, kudos to the young actor). This makes the film appear more exploitative – focused on shocking the viewers rather than building on the dialogue around bullying. Less focus on showing traumatic bullying and more focus on the characters and their motivations and feelings would have been helpful to justify the conclusion of the film. Spending more time building the characters would have also helped convey the complexities of bullying and its many forms.

Ultimately, if you’re a sucker for traumatic films designed to trigger emotions with a low budget, here’s Tears of Joy. It manipulates emotion by focusing on shocks and some intense crying scenes, carried out well by Neila Jones.

What to Watch Next

Whilst these exploitative, PSA style ‘message films’ aren’t my cup of tea, there are plenty of them from around the world. For more check out any of the following: