Facing Domestic Violence

Animated Body Language in Angry Man

Abstract

The animated film Angry Man (2009) by Anita Killi is about Boj, a little boy who experiences family violence, and who reveals this family secret to the King. The internationally award-winning animated film is an adaptation of a picture book with the same title by Gro Dahle and Svein Nyhus from 2003, and in the adaptation process Killi has interpreted, transposed, and transcoded a fictional world from one medium to another (Hutcheon, 2013). Animation as a medium has the capacity to create an illusion of life through frame-by-frame techniques (Wells, 1998). Killi has animated in stop motion, which means that the animator creates the illusions of movements by physically moving elements and figures before photographing a new image, and this animation technique can make the character’s movements particularly meaningful (Anumasa et. al., 2013; Mohamed & Nor, 2015; Ngo, 2018). The video essay explores how animated body language in Angry Man establishes the personality of Boj for the film audience (Wells, 1999) as a narrative element that externalizes inner emotions, automatic emotional reactions and interpersonal relationships linked to a classic pattern of family violence (Korte, 1997; Rakovec- Felser, 2014); and it shows how characters and relationships are transformed when the family gets help. In the epigraphic video essay, text functions as a visual support for analytical reasoning (Keathley & Mitchell, 2019). In a didactic context, the video essay provides an opportunity for teachers and students to explore animated body language in Angry Man as well as stimulating further reflection.