Understanding Narrative Structures
A story that follows a clear beginning, middle, and end in the order things happened.
o What is a linear story?
o What is chronological storytelling?
o What is a story that moves forward in time?
This film uses animation and shifting visuals to show history, memory, and identity across time.
o What is Four Faces of the Moon?
This film follows both a modern character and a past spirit figure at the same time.
o What is Biidaaban?
In this film, the main character ends up in the same place where they started, but with a deeper understanding of their identity.
o What is The Handsome Monologue?
o What is a story where the main character returns to where they began?
o What is an example of a circular narrative?
This type of storytelling sees time as something that moves in cycles rather than in a straight line.
o What is cyclical storytelling?
o What is a way of telling stories where time repeats?
o What is a story structure that reflects renewal and connection?
A type of storytelling where events are not told in order, often jumping between past, present, or future.
o What is nonlinear storytelling?
o What is a fractured narrative?
o What is a story that uses flashbacks or time shifts?
In Four Faces of the Moon, history isn’t told in a straight line—it moves through memory, images, and emotions.
o How does Four Faces of the Moon tell its story?
o What is a film that uses fractured storytelling?
o Why is Four Faces of the Moon not in chronological order?
This storytelling structure weaves together different perspectives to show that time isn’t separate—it’s connected.
o What is interwoven storytelling?
o What is parallel narrative structure?
This type of story structure brings a character back to a familiar place or moment but with new knowledge that changes everything.
o What is a circular narrative?
A structure where two or more storylines happen at the same time or switch between different perspectives.
o What is parallel storytelling?
o What is an interwoven narrative?
This type of storytelling makes the audience actively piece together the story, just like the character pieces together their identity.
o What is fractured storytelling?
This film shows that ancestral knowledge still exists today and is a guiding force for the present.
o How does Biidaaban use parallel storytelling to show ancestral knowledge?
o What is a way to show that the past isn’t gone?
o How does Biidaaban show time as a relationship?
In The Handsome Monologue, the character realizes that they are not separate from the shadow they saw at the crossroads—they are the shadow.
o How does The Handsome Monologue use circular storytelling?
A story that ends where it began, with the main character or audience understanding something new.
o What is a circular narrative?
By structuring the film this way, the filmmaker shows that history is not something in the past—it is alive and shaping the present.
o How does fractured storytelling change how we see history?
o Why does Four Faces of the Moon move between different time periods?
By blending timelines, the filmmaker makes us question our assumptions about time, progress, and the role of Indigenous knowledge.
o How does Biidaaban challenge Western views of time?
o How does storytelling shape how we see the future?
o Why is Indigenous storytelling important for understanding history?
The circular structure of this film reflects the way Indigenous storytelling often moves—time is not just forward-moving, but something we return to and learn from.
o How does The Handsome Monologue connect to Indigenous storytelling traditions?
o Why does the story’s circular structure matter?
A storytelling approach, common in Indigenous traditions, where time moves in cycles rather than straight lines.
o What is cyclical storytelling?
This film’s structure challenges the way Western history is usually told—as a single, objective timeline.
o How does Four Faces of the Moon decolonize storytelling?
o How does fractured storytelling reject Western ideas of history?
o What is a way Indigenous storytelling resists colonial narratives?
This kind of storytelling is a form of resistance—it pushes back against the idea that Indigenous cultures exist only in the past.
o How does parallel storytelling challenge colonial ideas of history?
o Why is it important that Indigenous characters exist in both past and future?
o How does storytelling become an act of resistance?
This story challenges the idea that self-discovery is a straight line—identity is something we return to again and again, deepening our understanding each time.
o How does The Handsome Monologue challenge Western ideas of personal growth?
o Why is self-discovery shown as a cycle instead of a straight path?
o How does circular storytelling shape the way we see identity?