Documentary Analysis – Lauren Birch

What’s Fufu?

This animation is about heritage and a young girl having a tough time growing up, and then beginning to figure out where she came from as she grows older. She begins in London with only one real happy memory, gets adopted by white parents, which makes it hard for her to connect to her Nigerian heritage, and then her friends from different cultures as met, what’s fufu? This sparks something in her as she doesn’t understand what it is and makes a bigger question as to where she’s really from and what her mother is like, as the only thing she has to compare to her is her anger. It shows a true story of a girl finding her way and learning who she is fully and wanting to understand where she came from. It shows how hard it is for her to have grown up in London and even though she was happy with the adopted white parents it wasn’t helpful to her to find her culture and who she is. In the end, we go through the animation into a real life setting which shows the girl in which the story is about, I like to think this shows these are really real stories and there’s hope for people who want to know where they’re from. It gives across a very positive message that you can start anywhere and become whoever you want to be. For the animation style, it was quite simple but caught my eye as it tells the story well and has an interesting take on things, like the umbilical cord at the beginning looks like blood, to me that would signify that her blood and family have cut ties. I liked this animation a lot as even though I can’t really relate I think it tells a very important story of who we are and what it means to be ourselves.

Vovo 

Vovo to me seems to be a story about family, primarily grandparents and older members and how we should cherish them and the experiences we have with them. He talks about his granddad in appearance to start, describing his bushy moustache and his bald head, but then gets on to health issues with him having to take pills, and then more about his personality and what he liked about him. The granddad wants to tell him something but he doesn’t get to and passes away. Then it goes to him describing his grandad again but this time it’s different, with more love and taking notice of smaller things. In the end, he calls back to his grandad saying he was resting his eyes and he’d fall asleep but this time his grandfather had passed away. It’s a nice light way to look at him and remember him for everything that he was, the good and the bad. It’s a very sweet ending for a film that made me feel sad about the death but happy for the good experiences they have. It makes you grateful for your own grandparents and want to take more time and care with them and listen and see them whenever they ask because you never know what they could say. It’s a sentimental story but very lighthearted with another important and strong message of family.