Drawing conclusions: Irish animation and national cinema

Traditionally perceived as the unclassifiable stepchild of many national cinemas, animation has recently become recognised as a form capable of astutely articulating and reflecting a nation's identity and concerns. In 2007, Persepolis (Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi) was chosen to represent France in the 'Foreign Language Film' category at the Academy Awards. The film was adapted by Iranian expatriate Marjane Satrapi from her own graphic novel, and charted her turbulent childhood growing up in Iran during the Iranian Revolution and Iran-Iraq War. Although the film did not make the final shortlist, its effective use of simple black and white art to convey a child's perspective of complex issues, did see it garner a nomination in the 'Animated Feature Film' category: a section ordinarily dominated by big budget family fare from Disney, DreamWorks and Pixar. The 2008 animated-documentary Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman) also used surface simplicity to more deeply penetrate a complicated topic. The film's examination of the 1982 Lebanon War achieved renewed piquancy by superimposing haunting, comic book-like graphics onto images that have become worryingly familiar in live-action. Like Persepolis, Waltz with Bashir has also become an international breakout 'hit' and was chosen to represent its country (Israel) in the Foreign Language Film category at the Academy Awards (2009). Yet, it seems strange that animated features have taken this long to co-habit the privileged status of 'national cinema' automatically granted to live-action films. If one subscribes to Jean Cocteau's belief that 'film will only become art when its materials are as inexpensive as pen and paper' then surely animation, while still beholden to budgetary concerns, is the form better positioned to reflect national interests, avoiding as it does, most of the vagaries of live action production (stars, crew, locations etc.). 2008 found the Irish film industry on the cusp of achieving a consistent level of Irish animated feature production; but do the films of this burgeoning trend reflect their local origins, or do they yield to marketplace pressures demanding cultural ambiguity?