Oscar® Contender Stop Motion Animation | Rag Doll

Watch Rag Doll director Leon Lee's new feature film Unsilenced at unsilencedmovie.com/. "A Moving Portrait Of Conscious Resistance In The Face Of Political Oppression."– LA Times

In the end scene when she is stepping out, scared, a shadow is covering her whole body. But when she overcomes her initial fear and her righteousness shines through, her field lights up. In contrast, at the same time, the guard stops and a shadow casts on his face. Beautiful storytelling and excellent production quality. Congratulations to the team 👏🏻

Let me explain the last few minutes incase someone doesn't get what it means. The group of ppl with orange vests were prisoners at a detention center in China(Changchun city). Prisoners there were forced to make dolls(the way the police would make profits). That guy with the shocker was a police. The gesture of the girl’s hand is from an ancient meditation called Falun Dafa, the practitioners of which are still going through brutal persecution in China.

16:40 When the young lady opens her eyes at the last scene, the braveness, courage, and determination is so powerful and penetrative that I feel there is no darkness anymore

I watched the film a few times and I was profoundly moved by the beauty and soul... There are lots of metaphors. Storm: when the guard with the cattle prod walks towards the girl, his shadow moves across her face. I think this is the key to understand the storm. Every time the storm comes in the animation, the shadow also moves across the girl's face. I think it represents oppression or the evil power. The girl then summons her courage and walks out of the shadow. So perhaps in a sense the storm/shadow also represents her inner fear that she has to overcome. Lotus: it's everywhere. It's on the little doll. As a matter of fact, mom was doing finishing touches on the lotus before the doll came alive. It's on the wall of the art store. Perhaps that's a painting by her mom? When the girl "sees" her mom meditating, mom picks up a lotus and it blossoms. The hand gesture the girl forms represents the lotus blossom. In Buddhist symbolism, the lotus represents purity, as if floating above the murky waters of material attachment and physical desire. The question I'm still trying to figure out is what the little doll represents. Any thoughts?

I have 2 hypothesis. 1 - The girl's mom got arrested and put in a detention camp for whatever reason and the girl was put in an orphanage but i read a comment saying that children of those prisoners also get unfair traitement so the storm may symbolize the oppression and because of her mom's identity, the girl can't receive help and she has to go through all of this suffering alone. The doll is something that her mom made for her before or after going to the camp ( I don't know if prisoners can send things ) and the girl learnt from her mom to not let the storm/oppression dirty her and to keep being pure like a lotus so the girl grew up with this advice in her heart and kept fighting alone while her mom was still suffering in the prison. 2 - the girl's mom died because of her belief ( maybe she practiced a religion that wasn't accepted there ) and the girl received no help because of the oppression. She had the same belief as her mother and broadcasted it in her drawings ( the woman with the lotus ) but she ended up being caught by the authorities and put into a detention camp. But even there, she kept believing in what she thought was right and sacrificed herself to protect someone... Either way it was a very good movie, it made me cry so much!

Simply beautiful. A true piece of an art. But what hurt the most was, how can you tell a child to leave orphanage?!!

This needs more views. It's reminiscent of The Little Matchstick Girl, only a reflection of the current repression, abuse, and murder of Chinese citizens under a despotic regime. Not a lot of art can truly claim to be brave, but this qualifies without question.

Dude, the plot, the expressions, the everything, you know what I wish? I wish this was a feature film

I cried during the art store part. Those who give thumbs down have no heart.

Thank you NTD China in Focus for bringing this animation of the cruelty to my attention and I will in turn try and do the same. This animation should be on every streaming platform and links to it everywhere as we all have children and families and we should not forget the victims of oppression everywhere in the world. I wish the Chinese people in the flooded cities in and around Beijing could see this and think what the dark clouds in this short film represents not only flooding but also oppression and the brutality that is the genocidal CCP - They might not see it but many know of it.

短短18分鐘短片，我哭了十幾分鐘，小女孩的遭遇令人不捨，最後一幕當我淚奔的同時，心卻暖暖的🌷 每天發生在中國，千萬人真實遭遇的故事，從影片中，卻能感受到人性的正義與善良。非常值得一看！

從雪地裡的生日蛋糕開始就止不住的流淚，美術用品老闆的善念讓人感動的再次落淚... 人性的光輝，在善惡之間閃爍，守住善良無論如何永遠都是最重要的事！

We need more of this kind of art work to awake the sleeping Chinese

The depiction beauty and brutality in this movie and how it moves us the watchers is what art is suppose to do. God bless you for making and posting it. May God destroy the CCP.

I love how the mother painted her a little sister! So cute!

My 3 year old daughter came across this vid and at 8 minutes, while i was working, came to me and showed me this. She looked sad, so I asked her, "why baby? Is it scary?" She shook her head. "Is it sad? Why?" Then she cried and said.. "her mommy, she doesnt have her mommy" and she cried big tears. I immediately stopped working in my laptop and picked her up. My baby.. understood this vid. I assured her it wasnt real, that its just a story. But she wont stop crying. So after work i decided to watch what's it about and cried too. I understood what she meant.

This kind of production has high standard of art elements, the story is telling, the details are so amazing, powerful messages and deep meaning in every scenes. Can wait to see more👍🙏

Touching my heart... I’m crying 😢 Pls always keep your heart pure and kind, don't be bad person anyway!

When she tried to celebrate her birthday with the rag doll I teared up. It's heartbreaking to see ..