We The Animals has no literal narrator. There is no disembodied voice leading the audience through the film, but there is a palpable sense of narration. It is clear that we are watching the memories of the main character, Jonah. He is one of three brothers living in a dysfunctional household in rural New York. When the three boys are together they are wild, mischievous and exuberant. They have their own micro-culture that ties them tightly together almost as if they have one body. They are close in age, somewhere around 10. Jonah’s one bit of separation from his brothers is when he slips under the bed at night to write and draw in a composition notebook he keeps in the mattress. The drawings often come to life through animation and allow us to enter Joanh’s mind. There are no words, only scratchy black figures playing out dream-like imagery that dives, morphs and flies around the screen.
