Kirikou and the Sorceress Analysis

Michel Ocelot directed and wrote “Kirikou and the Sorceress,” a film about how a newborn village baby copes with evil from his town. This was Ocelot’s breakout film, as it won best animated feature at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival 1999 [8] and best European feature at the British Animation Awards 2002.

Most notably, Ocelot uses a very unique choice of color. Not silhouette, but dark for skin. Toward the end of the preview, the film shifts to the sorceress, in other words, the bad guy’s domain. These colors, of course, are black and white, and the air is fogged up.

The opening music sets the tone from the get-go, showing that this is a village neighborhood. The animation techniques are clearly computer drawn and Ocelot uses multiple camera angles to convey the tone of each scene. For example, in the first scene with the pregnant mother Ocelot varies between close-ups and wide shots to stress importance. The camera goes close on the mother’s face when she announces to her newborn son that his father is fighting.

Although this was only a five minute preview to this movie, the storyline immediately became enticing. The young boy talks himself out of his mother’s stomach (literally), and then immediately looks to help his family fight the sorceress. One family member doesn’t even believe the baby is related to him. He tricks his way into getting a ride on his head by hiding under a hat, but soon finds himself at the hands of -- what seems to be -- an evil sorceress.

Persepolis Analysis

"Persepolis" by Marjane Satrapi is a great example of why exaggeration is an important part of animating. I like how Satrapi used exaggeration in this animation to emphasize parts of the story. Strapi certainly did not over-exaggerate.

Exaggeration does not mean just distorting the actions or objects arbitrarily, but the animator must carefully choose which properties to exaggerate. If only one thing is exaggerated then it may stand out too much. If everything is exaggerated, then the entire scene may appear too unrealistic.

For example, a common use of exaggeration in "Persepolis" is the height of kids vs. the height of adults. The nuns look like they are 10 feet tall compared to the 3 feet tall kids. I think it's important "Persepolis" used exaggeration because it was in black and white. It helped distinguish and emphasize characteristics more easily.

It is important not to emphasize too many things with exaggeration because then it is hard to differentiate what is being exaggerated and what is not. I think exaggerating height is frequently used in animation, and it's something I definitely would have used if I had animated something with children and adults. However, I understand its ability to emphasize characteristics of people, objects and sound as well.