The shorts can make or break your Oscar pool. Thanks to Shorts TV, the animated, live action, and documentary short films are easier to find every year, but what about those films that just missed the cut? Earlier this month, the Academy released their shortlist of films for all three shorts categories, and we will be looking at all the entries before the nominations are announced.
Hair Love, last year’s winner of Best Animated Short, still remains one of the best wins in recent memory of the category. A true Cinderella Kickstarter story, Marc Cherry created a film that is not just entertaining but will serve as inspiration to young Black girls everywhere.
The animated shorts provide many different perspectives and points of view every season, and this crop features some work from around the world. Like every year, Disney and Pixar are in the hunt (when are they not?), but they have to face off against some very worthy adversaries from France and Iceland. Some are currently more accessible than others. According to The Academy’s website, 96 shorts qualified for this category.
The Snail and the Whale
I hope you like rhyming Brits!
The ambition of a small snail is the center of Magic Light Pictures’ adorable The Snail and the Whale. Magic Light has been nominated a few times in the last ten years (The Gruffalo, Room on the Room, and Revolting Rhymes all made the cut), but the studio has yet to pick up an Oscar.
Sally Hawkins’ The Snail has a dream to see the world but she has trouble figuring out how to get her journey started. The other snails don’t seem to understand her dream, but that doesn’t stop her. One day, she hitches a ride on the tail of a humpback whale, and they set sail! For Vale? Or Yale? It really is easy to slip into the rhyming…
The Snail and the Whale is the longest short film of the list of ten, but you wouldn’t know it by the way that directors Max Lang and Daniel Snaddon keep the adventure going. The snail and the whale share encounters with sharks and snippy seagulls, and they run into danger when the tide goes too far in. It’s truly a family friendly short. This story is based on a popular children’s book in the UK and the short originally aired on the BBC around Christmas. It could get nominated because of so many people being familiar with the property.
Yes-People
Not a lot is said in the hilarious other than “Já” but it’s a great example of it’s not what you say but how you say it.
Yes-People is a slice of life short. In one normal looking apartment building, we cut back and forth between neighbors and parents as they get through their day: A man shovels the sidewalk, a mom gives music lessons in her dining room, a woman sneaks a small bottle of booze to calm her nerves. They only respond in “já” as things come at them or they interact with spouses or children.
There is something comforting about the roundness of the characters or some of their features. They are clearly animated characters but the sharpness of one’s nose or fluffiness of one’s hair makes them quite human. The mundane activities they take on throughout the day is more amusing than you would assume, and the result is one of the best shorts of the bunch.
Kapaemahu
Kapaemahu is a history lesson made right because it is reaching a wider audience. Four healers sail from Tahiti to Hawaii, and they are described as “tall and deep in voice yet gentle and soft-spoken. They were not male nor female.” With American politicians continually trying to destroy the rights of transgender people, Kapaemahu is a reminder of how two-spirited people do exist, and they have a long, rich history.
Each of the four healers carry a different power and once their work is completed on the islands, the villagers are so thankful that a monument of four stones is erected in their honor. Powers are transferred into the stones, but, unfortunately, they laid forgotten for centuries. They were restored in 1997 during a dedication ceremony on Waikiki Beach.
The hand-drawn images are stunning. The yellows and browns burn brightly like a beacon or a sign of hope to keep this story alive. The way the film swirls around you is quite remarkable. The story carries a shameful sadness because the truth of the mahu has been erased from the story of Kapaemahu. It’s a complex story told with immense clarity.
Kapaemahu is streaming on the film’s site.
Out
The SparkShorts program from Pixar strives to give new artists a voice to animate films with personal stories attached to them. Last year, Kitbull was nominated in this category, and in the last few years, they’ve made memorable shorts like Wind (featuring the bond between a grandmother and grandson) and Purl (about an earnest ball of pink yarn trying to make it in a male-dominated workplace).
Steven Clay Hunter’s Out was even gayer than I had hoped for when it debuted this last summer. One of the first images we see is of a sparkly dog and cat emerging from a rainbow (yes, I need a sitcom of these two). The film centers on Greg, a closeted gay man set to move to a new place but his parents don’t know that he has been in a relationship with Manuel. When Greg’s parents (a sweet, protective mother and a mostly silent, brick of a father) show up unexpectedly to help their son, an unexpected body swap happens (Disney is loving body swaps this yeah, huh?) and Greg learns that coming out can only strengthen the bond between between him and his parents.
Out uses all the colors in the crayon box–I will admit that I have thought about it a lot since it initially dropped on Disney+, because it isn’t afraid to show gay characters. The comedy is looser than you’d expect and you can tell that Hunter was truly allowed to shape this bright, sparkly, queer situation that almost every gay person has to go through. It can be proud and delightful all at the same time.
Out is available to watch on Disney+
Opera
Opera is one of the most transfixing animated shorts I’ve ever seen. The camera slowly pulls back from black to show us a mountain peak with a quiet moon hanging over it. Suddenly, a figure emerges from the top of the mountain and an hourglass turns over with light spilling over the scene as the sand begins to fall.
The camera pans down the mountain side, and we see groups of people working, praying, dancing and worshipping. There are so many ideas about community and life in Erick Oh’s film. Does one’s actions affect the impact of another group? Are we all connected? In an interview with Animation World Network, Oh explained that he was influenced by political strife and anxiety.
“In January 2017, Donald Trump became president of the U.S. and a few months later in March, president Park Geun-hye in Korea was impeached. It was, indeed, the year of chaos and I had to tell a story that documents this part of humanity, which actually has been repeating in human history numerous times, in different forms and cultures. This piece fearlessly touches upon diverse issues like racism, terrorism, religion, natural disasters, war, education, economy and more in different parts and classes within our society. And after all, everything continues looping eternally.”
Opera is a feast for the senses–I imagine that you could watch this on a continuous loop and never get bored with it since your eyes naturally dart around trying to consume as much of it as possible. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
To: Gerard
“I have always found the most exciting trick is finding magic in the least likely places” is a line spoken at the very beginning of DreamWorks’ To: Gerard, a sweet film about an older man getting a second chance and how passion can be transferred from one generation to the next.
The dull, grey world of the United Postal Service (Have you gotten that letter your grandmother sent in January? Didn’t think so…) is the starting setting of this short. Gerard (who could be Gru’s American cousin) performs sleight of hand in his lonely office as he sorts envelopes. He twirls a shiny, golden coin between his spindly fingers, and you can imagine how he would’ve been a hit at parties or on a worldwide stage. When a spikey-haired girl innocently happens upon Gerard, she eyes his talent and the gold coin.
DreamWorks animated short films have never really made it into the Oscar shorts race despite Shrek being the first film to take Animated Feature Oscar. It is a more commercial piece, but it’s also tugs your heart more than you might expect. The spikes of purple throughout and the overall sheen make it a slick, charming, and nostalgic selection in this race.
To: Gerard is streaming on Peacock.
Genius Loci
“All around me, I find chaos. It’s always there. It just changes in scale,” says Reine towards the top of Genius Loci, the trippiest of the films on the shortlist. Adien Merigeau manages to be an explosion of color and images but also an exploration of the loneliness of the wandering mind.
Genius Loci doesn’t have a lot of a plot, but that doesn’t matter. Its lead, Reine, is going through an emotional time in her life, and she is sorting things out herself. It’s easy to connect with her when the restraints of a typical story are released from you. The more Reine wanders around the city, the stranger the images become. They swirl around Reine and her wide eyes, the colors expanding and contracting–the images distorting before her very eyes.
There is a tremendous momentum to the imagery of Genius Loci. The colors pulse on the characters’ face as they mingle around one another. Background pieces dance around the screen and people transform into animals and back again. Not all who wander are lost, but the trip Genius Loci takes us on is tremendously engaging in how it explores this young woman’s meandering. There is an unexpected, tender embrace at the end of the film. It makes the journey worth it.
Traces
The artistry of Traces is evident from the very first frame. You can almost see the fingerprints of the animators as the action flows from one image to the next. It’s a muscular and mysterious piece. When an animal is drawn, it is then hunted.
The hulking Gwel is made head of the hunting group and he brings along Karou the Painter and his apprentice Lani. It’s a simple story, so there isn’t a lot to be said about the plot. There is dialogue but there are no subtitles to guide you along the story. You don’t need them.
Traces is a ferocious animated film. There is a brutality in how the images move and how the filmmakers choose the deepness of the blacks is really impressive. Shadow and speed is captured in a truly unique way. It can be dark as night one minute and then the whites fade into something else entirely. When the punches of blood red come in, it will take your breath away because you will feel like you are drenched in this black and white landscape. It is both darkness and light.
Burrow
Like Out, Burrow comes from SparkShorts, but it has subtler theme of community and accepting help as its main theme. Burrow was set to screen before Pixar’s Animated Feature hopeful, Soul, but it was released on Disney+ this holiday season instead.
A young bunny is excited to start digging her new home but she seems a bit embarrassed by her simple plans when a mole and a mouse reveal their respective home blueprints. In order to get from them, she frantically keeps digging but ends up encountering many other different animals that dwell beneath our feet. She stumbles upon newts, frogs, and hedgehogs as she scurries around to find a place to call her own.
With its forest greens and shades of brown, Burrow reminded me of a children’s books like Frog and Toad. Director Madeline Sharafian does an impeccable job of conducting the light to make this a fully fleshed out world. This could be the start of a small, underground cinematic universe. Clocking in at only six minutes, Burrow is jaunty and sweet. This little bunny will learn that it can take a village to build a home.
Burrow is available to stream on Disney+
If Anything Happens, I Love You
An important American social issue comes in the form of Netflix’s entry, If Anything Happens I Love You. Directors Will McCormack and Michael Govier tell the story of a a pair of grieving parents and how tragedy can wedge itself into a marriage to almost drive them apart. The short is executive produced by reigning Supporting Actress winner, Laura Dern.
Using no dialogue, McCormack and Govier used black and white to drench a husband and wife in sadness. Their shadow selves show fights between them and the shadows are drawn with harsher angles, and color only seeps in when an emotional element helps the story turn. When we see the couple happy and revisit memories of their life together with their daughter, it’s almost as if their pain is beginning to slow fade before coming back. Grieving a child doesn’t ever go away–it mutates and evolves–and McCormack and Govier handle this subject matter with the utmost care. Earlier this fall, Netflix did a presentation with some of their shorts, and Govier explained why animation was the right way to go.
“It actually pulls you into the story more. You feel the heart and the warmth and the heart of what they are going through I think it would be too intense if it were live action. From the beginning, animation had to be the vehicle to deliver the subject and there was no other medium.”
While Netflix has become a presence in the Documentary Feature and Documentary Short categories, it has yet to score a nomination in Best Animated Short. This is a very strong contender.
If Anything Happens, I Love You is streaming on Netflix.
Who Is Going to Be Nominated?
There are a million ways this category could go, and it’s difficult to gauge if they will go for more serious titles or if they will simply respond to the style of animation. Are they going to go for cuter stories because of the pandemic? Of course, never count out Disney, and Netflix is on the hunt for their first mention in this category. If I had to take a stab at it, I would say (in alphabetical order):
1. Genius Loci
2. If Anything Happens, I Love You
3. Kapaemahu
4. Opera
5. Out