Give Up Yer Aul Sins is an animated short film (5 minutes) from Irish studio Brown Bag Films.
In the short, a film crew arrives at a school to interview the children, and film them telling Bible stories. A little girl named Mary, the first to be interviewed for the camera, tells her own memorable story of the beheading of John the Baptist.
The voice of the little girl is taken from a real audio recording, dating back to the 1960s, of a little girl at Rutland Street School in Dublin telling the story of John the Baptist. Thirty-odd years later, it was rediscovered and made the basis of an animated short.
Tropes:
- An Arm and a Leg: One of the miracles Jesus cites to prove his divinity, according to the little girl, is the healing of lepers. This is accompanied by a shot of a happily smiling ex-leper waving around an arm that fell off.
- Bald of Evil: Salome, who asked for the head of John the Baptist because he pissed her off, is shown to be an ugly lady with only a few scattered hairs on her head.
- Born in the Theater: Invoked. At the end of the little girl's story, the picture goes out of frame, the "film" having supposedly come off the reel as the camera is turned off.
- Deliberately Monochrome: The entire cartoon was done in sepia tones, presumably to evoke an old-timey 1960s feel.
- Demanding Their Head: It is the John the Baptist story! As the little girl relates, Salome catches the king by surprise by demanding the head of John the Baptist on a plate. The king gives in.
- Framing Device: A TV interview of children at school is the chance for a little girl to tell the story of John the Baptist.
- Funetik Aksent: The title represents a little girl with a thick Dublin accent saying "Give up your all sins."
- Meaningful Appearance: Most adaptations of the John the Baptist story would probably depict Salome as a seductive temptress. But the animation is meant to represent the imagination of a little girl, so the girl shows Salome as a witch-like figure, with an ugly, hair-sprouting mole on the right side of her face.
- Minimalist Cast: There are only two voices in the cartoon. The voice of the little girl is from an actual 1960s recording of a little girl. To this the animators added the voice of actress Maria McDermottroe, playing the teacher.
- Real Time: An excited little girl breathlessly tells the story of John the Baptist in her own unique way, for a camera.
- Walk on Water: When a messenger from John approaches Jesus to find out if he actually is the son of God, the messenger finds Jesus standing on top of the Sea of Galilee, fishing.
