The Persistence of Animation

Fatigued and Dizzy: A Preliminary Consideration of Strategies of Subversion in the Animation of Eastern Europe

Abstract: The cinema of Eastern Europe has been widely considered a political one, deeply engaged with the mediation of social realities of the region. It is mostly in this context — the struggle between national cultural heritage and the impositions of Communism — that most of the subversive strategies of Eastern European animation are shaped. This is a struggle manifest in the clash between modernism and socialist realism, a particular view towards history as a burden, and a kind of pessimism towards contemporary social circumstances emerging from a long lasting inability to escape from the impositions of communism as an outside force.

Biographical Statement: This paper is a part of a larger research (a PhD project at the University for the Creative Arts, UK) on animation’s potentialities for mediation of social realities in restrictive contexts. The research — which involves producing an animation in the restrictive context of my country Iran — started with exploration of a brand of animation which discusses social realities (i.e. non-fiction animation.) It then moved on to investigation of different strategies developed and perfected within animations engaged with mediation of social realities produced in restrictive context; particularly Eastern European animation. It will be developed further by examining various representational strategies within that branch of Iranian art and particularly Iranian cinema which is socially informed. All these will prepare a context for production of an animation within the limiting context of contemporary Iran which discusses sensitive issue of violence against contemporary Iranian Women.