But, apart from these episodes, just about everything is sung, and, in this movie, the songs aren't merely commentary on the narrative and the personal conflicts; they are the narrative and the drama a rousing success story that is also (though we don't realize it right away) a parallel story of failure.
One example is his use of footnotes, which usually involve a comic departure from the narrative or a commentary on the narrative, and occasionally have footnotes of their own.
And a very early rabbinic commentary on the narrative notices that when these three figures first appear, they are "standing over" Abraham; but when Abraham serves them the meal he and Sarah have prepared he is "standing over them".
This book is more a commentary on a narrative than a narrative itself, a documentary kaleidoscope that becomes overburdened, overly expository.
Patrick A. McCarthy expands on this idea of a non-linear, digressive narrative with the contention that "throughout much of Finnegans Wake, what appears to be an attempt to tell a story is often diverted, interrupted, or reshaped into something else, for example a commentary on a narrative with conflicting or unverifiable details".
The weirdly innocuous tone, like that of a children's book, is presumably Ms. Lee's mordant commentary on the simplicity of the dominant narratives of black urban dysfunction and/or achievement prevalent in the cultural atmosphere.
Investigators digitally recorded detailed, twice-daily summaries of their activities, observations and conversations with villagers, supplemented by their personal impressions of the settings and behaviors in order to provide commentary on the context and meaning of narratives and not merely their face-value content.
The political commentaries are one element; the narrative must rely more heavily on ideas around broken family and coming-of-age.
The superb, visceral set pieces keep you on the very edge of your seat, if not under it, but between those there's almost no narrative, no wider commentary on the war, and no exploration of how it is that Renner can stroll towards suspicious packages without giving a moment's thought to his potential obliteration.
The key features of the narratives include connections between social or autobiographical and biological understandings of NCDs, the appropriation of modern concepts of disease in illness narratives, and reflexive commentary on the modern features of NCDs.
What sets out to be a semi-satirical commentary on the nature of male friendships becomes a lost narrative with nothing at its heart, as though the author had pursued the subject only to discover that it was empty.
