It is just
about Oscar time and in preparation a select number of
theaters nationwide are screening the always enigmatic Oscar
Nominated Shorts. These are the films that screw your tally
up when your competing for Oscar predictions, a handful of
brief vignettes directed by people you’ve never heard of.
You always pick the strangely named film from some Nigerian
director, but the award goes instead to an upstart Swede who
made a film about ice-cracking. I actually got to see the
films this year and I had a few thoughts and a brief
breakdown of what I liked, what I loved, and what I thought
could’ve been left out. But first, a few other
thoughts ...
1. The short culture must be pretty barren in this here
America as nearly all of the films come from the UK or some
other country decidedly not American. There’s a lot of
hubbub about how difficult it is to actually get a short
screened properly to even make eligible for Oscar
contention, and maybe Americans, high on joints smoked from
100 dollar bills, just don’t have the time to care. The one
American film in the whole lot, The God of Love is
cheeky and entertaining and rife with the influence of the
American Independent movement. Get on it American! Put down
your diamond encrusted challenges and pick up a camera!
2. Short films seem like short fiction. And by that I mean:
hard to do right. A solid handful of the films here are cute
and not hard to watch, but they seem like the exemplary
films that you'd see from someone who was in my college film
program. My college film program at a school of 1300 people
that had 22 graduates in my class. My college film program
that had never heard of HD cameras and boom mikes. I’ll let
you sift out the meaning of that.
3. The non-animated shorts are weirdly dominated by films
about children (Wish 143, The Confession,
The Crush and Na Wewe all feature children in
prominent roles). At first I thought, maybe kids are just
funny little creatures and using them in short films plays
to the judges soft, soft hearts. This isn’t true though,
Oscar judges have notoriously scaly hearts and are known to
eat children for breakfast. Thus, I can only guess that this
flock of child-related films is a fluke, and that in the
past the Oscar shorts are full of adults and adult
situations.
4. The animated films are really much more worth your time
this go around. It must be the ability to explore the
absolutely fantastical animation allows for, as they are
just rife with ideas and imagination the non-animated shorts
are not. Perhaps the freedom to do whatever you want loosens
the strict time-constraints and narrative concerns so
prominent in a short film. Or maybe this years crop of
animators towers above their non-animated cohorts.
Short Thoughts On Short Films
LIVE ACTION
The Confession,
d. Tanel Toom, c. UK
A couple of kids try to muck up their reputation in time for
their first confession. Bad things happen. The kids aren’t
great actors, but the tone and suspense is well done. Also,
scarecrows are creepy.
The Crush, d.
Michael Creagh, c. Ireland
The story of a kid who challenges his teacher’s deadbeat
fiancé to a duel sounds like it could be fantastical,
instead it’s slowly paced and cheesily commercial-like.
Wish 173, d. Ian
Barnes, c. UK
I’ve always wondered that if I got terminally ill if I could
use my "wish" to have sex with a famous hot woman. This film
predicts no, but does a decent job of dissecting the reasons
why a 16 year-old dying virgin might choose such a wish, and
the implications it might have when he can’t seem to wrap it
up. The two male leads have an easy chemistry and though it
ends with a dollop of Velveeta, I never found myself bored.
God of Love, d.
Luke Matheny, c. USA
Again, God Of Love is cheeky and sly in an old-school
Wes Anderson sort of way. A man with incredible dart
abilities and yearning for some loving finds himself an
unsuspecting cupid. Magical love darts included. Lovely
black and white, with some strong turns from every actor
involved. Best of all? The pace and vigor of the dialogue,
hell, the whole piece. It’s weird and wacky and sweet, and
I’d love to see what Luke Matheny could do with a big
budget.
Na Wewe, d. Ivan
Goldschmidt, c. Belgium
The best film of the whole Live Action lot. A van in Burundi
is pulled over by militia members looking to kill a few
"Tutsi snakes." What unfurls proves the point that class and
race distinctions are arbitrary, especially when they are
used to further along hatred. Each passenger of the van is
given the opportunity to prove they aren’t Tutsi, and the
answers, and the warlord’s response are perfect. Our hatreds
have deep roots, deep deep confusing roots and when you pull
the dirt away, quite often we realize these hatreds barely
exist. Na Wewe does a great deal to showcase this.
ANIMATED
Madagascar, A Journey
Diary, d. Bastien Dubois, c. France
Uh, what? This feels like an exceptionally well done,
incredibly artistically minded commercial for Madagascar.
Lacking narrative or purpose, but the fact that it has no
connection to Madagascar, the insipid animated film, makes
it far more watchable.
Lets Pollute, d.
Geefwee Boedoe, c. USA
Subverting the 1950s PSA, Geefwee Boedoe scratches together
a fantastically cute ode to pollution. It’s sarcastic, but
never bitter, and adorable and made me smile for a solid six
minutes.
The Lost Thing, d. Andrew Ruhemann/Shaun Tan, c. Australia
Wow, these are two animators to keep an eye out for. Set in
some Brazil like future, The Lost Thing tells the
story of a boy who stumbles across, well, a lost thing. This
isn’t a bauble or a handful of string though, it’s a
bell-shaped creature with oozing tentacles and a golden
alien interior. It’s a beautiful piece that doesn’t shy away
from the odd and eccentric. The boy’s last lines as he
rockets away on an indistinguishable tram hits you right in
your creative innards. A great little short.
The Gruffalo, d.
Max Lang/Jakob Schuh, c. UK
It doesn’t seem fair that The Gruffalo has such a
weighty voice cast (featuring the likes of Helena Bonham
Carter, Tom Wilkinson, and so on) but even if it didn’t have
their dulcet tones, it would still be a joyful gem of a
short film. A fox tells her young ones the tale of a crafty
mouse, some deadly predators, and a Wild Thing-looking beast
named The Gruffalo. As most animated creatures in Hollywood
these days look somewhat similar, you take for granted when
an animation team takes the time to craft a truly different
looking world. The Gruffalo does just that, and
combined with the stellar cast and a fantastic script, well,
I watched it twice. And it deserves more looks.
Night and Day, d.
Teddy Newton, c. USA
It’s Pixar, it’s a short, it’s amazing. Do I need to say
anymore? If you didn’t catch this in front of Toy Story 3
I say shame, shame, shame. Brilliant in all the ways Pixar
knows how to be brilliant.
The Oscar Nominated Shorts open this week in SF
Landmark’s Lumiere Theater and Landmark’s Opera Plaza
Theater. You can also catch them at the Alamo
Drafthouse in Austin.
- Noah Sanders
-
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