2/9/19 Nominated animated shorts 2018
Bao - Pixar makes its annual stop on the list of nominees, and it's not bad; sometimes I find them cheesy, corny, sicky sweet. This was sweet, but also clever. An unnamed Chinese-Canadian mother is making dumplings for her and her husband, and as she is ready to eat the last one, it sprouts eyes and legs and develops human characteristics. He even brings home a girlfriend and wants to leave home. With his last act of rebelliousness, mother pops him in her mouth and eats him. I thought it was hilarious and awesome and quirky, but sadly it was just a metaphor for her grown up son who has left home. Sigh. I should have known.
Late Afternoon is an Irish entry and the animation style reminded me a little of The Book of Kells, flowy and like chalk drawings. It's about an elderly woman who is clearly dealing with ailments of age, although it becomes clear that it's a form of dementia. Someone is helping her clean and giving her tea and helping to pack. As the day goes on, the woman recalls moments from her youth and when her daughter was young. The woman helping her is her daughter. It was beautifully drawn/animated and was a gentle tribute to all of our parents (okay, to the cynics out there, maybe not all of our parents).
Animal Behaviour - Oh, Canada! I can always count on at least one Canadian entry in this category, and it's usually pretty good. This made me laugh out loud more than once (and seriously, considering how the rest of the day went, that means a lot). It's about a therapy group session featuring animals addressing some of their personal issues and hang ups. Dr. Clement, a dog, facilitates the session with Lorraine the leech, Cheryl the mantis, Todd the pig, Jeffrey the bird and Linda the cat; they all have their own baggage, but nothing compares to Victor the gorilla's anger management issues. Maybe it seems simplistic, but it was fun to watch human hang ups portrayed by animals and then made fun of by Victor. It was clever, and reminded me, content-wise, of Ardman Studio's Creature Comforts, one of my all time favorites. I would love it if this won, but something tells me it won't.
One Small Step is a Chinese-American production that features Luna, a young girl who has aspirations of space exploration. She is being raised by her father or grandfather who is also a shoemaker. He supports her dreams by making or adapting shoes with space symbolism. As so often happens with teenagers (I speak from experience), the gestures you show them when they are small often go unappreciated as they get older, and put away childish things. Luna applies to an astronaut type school and at first is rejected, and moves on from that dream until she is faced with the loss of her father-figure and left with memories. Thus inspired, she rededicates herself to her dreams and finds her success. I love the idea of girl power, especially in the sciences, so I don't want to pooh-pooh that notion, but it seemed a pretty obvious conclusion.
Weekends follows a young boy as he shares his time between his divorced parents; his mother, who is sometimes seen studying an accounting book; his father who seems to be a collector or dealer in antiques. The boy has a lot of fun at his dad's as they rock out in the car, watch fun movies, play with his dad's collection of Japanese swords and armor. At home with his mom, there's a new person in the mix in the form of a boyfriend, who doesn't seem thrilled to have a kid around the house. There's no dialog, but I think the story has universal appeal to adults who have lived through that experience (as adults or kids) and kids who are going through it now. The animation style was similar to Late Afternoon in that it was flowy and almost dreamlike. It wasn't my favorite, but I wouldn't be upset if it won.
Now, on to the live action shorts. Feel free to skip the reviews or the shorts themselves; we'll both be fine, and only one of us will still be scarred from the experience. I never thought I would tell people to stay away from the shorts, but this year, if you don't stay away, then be warned: they are intense.
Madre (Mother) is a Spanish entry; it opens with a woman and her mother coming into the daughter's apartment and being quizzed by her mother. The daughter is frustrated and annoyed at her mother's questions as she seems to be getting ready for a night out with friends, when her phone rings. It's her little boy, calling from somewhere in Spain or France, he's not quite sure. He is supposed to be with his father at the beach, but nobody is sure which beach, and the father is nowhere to be found. You can feel the tension and panic as the mom is trying to help her son keep calm as his cell phone battery is dying. The audience is left with a sense of dread and uncertainty. On its own, I liked the suspense, but among the collection of films, it just added to the sense of dread.
Fauve is a French Canadian film starring two boys, Benjamin and Tyler, out on their own, teasing and testing each other, you know, throwing rocks at each other, pushing one another, and like some adults I know would say, it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. They come across what seems like sand, but turns out to be more treacherous and lethal. I won't ruin the ending for you, but I will say after reading some comments from the writer/director, it just felt self-indulgent, and I didn't think end was 'peaceful'. It's available online if you're so inclined to look for it.
Marguerite is another Canadian entry, and I have to say it was by far my favorite and the most uplifting film of the whole afternoon. I think they put it in the middle to give us all a break from the heaviness, but I wish they would have ended the collection with this so we could have all benefitted from its restorative power. Marguerite is an elderly lady who receives regular home visits from a nurse, Rachel. Initially there isn't a lot of dialog, just film of the daily routine: bath, collecting vital signs, etc. Rachel receives a phone call, and based on the over heard conversation, Marguerite asks if it was Rachel's boyfriend. In fact, it was Rachel's girlfriend, which she tells Marguerite. Marguerite registers some surprise, but you can see her processing. Later, Marguerite goes through an old scrapbook, looking at pictures of her and friends from fifty years ago, including a particularly dear friend. It's clear (or it was to me) that Marguerite has feeling of sadness and loss, which she later tells Rachel. It was so different back then. But don't be sad, because what happens next is just beautiful and the best of humanity. Rachel kisses Marguerite and then climbs onto the other side of the bed and embraces her. It's not sexual, it's not gross or inappropriate, it's one human being showing kindness and love to another human being. I hope it wins.
Detainment is based on the true story of the kidnapping and brutal murder of James Bulger, a three year old from Liverpool, by two ten year olds, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, in 1993. The film used police reports and interrogation tapes dialog and background, but it wasn't a documentary. The two young actors were very good, very compelling and believable. I may have been biased against the movie, but I had read prior to seeing the film that James Bulger's mother was circulating a petition to have the Academy remove the movie from consideration because writer/director, Vincent Lambe, didn't consult her or her former husband about creating the film, or inform them about the film at all, and even consider them at all. I read a response from him where he apologized (it hadn't occurred to him to reach out to them) and he felt the movie should be made to look at young offenders and how they are treated (and I may have imposed my own thoughts here, but I thought he wanted to look at how young people turn into murders or how society treats them if they are turned into society). Basically, I was looking for something good to come out of this. I have to say that I didn't find one redeeming quality in this movie at all (do you sense a theme?). We get zero insight into Jon and Robert's home life, except that their parents seem like caring and moral people (if not the case, it wasn't evident in the film). The movie ends with title cards saying they were the youngest ever convicted. This isn't a question of if they did it, but why, and can it be predicted or prevented. I feel like the movie was made on false pretenses.
Skin - Let me start this by saying that five people to the left of me in the theatre walked out about midway through the movie, and the woman directly in front of us was sobbing so hard her body was heaving. Also, somewhere along the way, a friend of mine thought the movie was about tattoo removal, the removal of Nazi tattoos. Um, NO. It definitely involves Nazi tattoos (hint: most things do not end well with people wearing Nazi skin art). The movie could also be called "Reap what you sow". Simply, a family of neo-Nazis goes out for a day of target shooting, and some of them attack a black man, with the only provocation being the guy was smiling at the young, white son of one of them. It goes downhill pretty quickly as the black man is jumped and beaten nearly to death. At first I thought it would end there (which would have been incomplete, but one could hope), but there is revenge to be gotten, or is it retribution? I don't want to spoil it in case you actually want to see it, but I will say a couple of things: I think it does show how hate begets hate, and if you raise your child to be a racist, you can't be surprised when your teachings come to fruition; I might even have 'appreciated' the movie, but the fact that it is set in the current day, and is not fiction in a lot of ways, I guess I didn't need that much reality.
