While the Best Animated Feature Oscar nominees this year are all solid (if quite conventional, wide-release fare) and high-quality, to the point that all nominees seem to have earned their spot and the big prize could go either way, I found myself quite underwhelmed by the Best Animated Short picks made by the Academy. Since shorts require significantly less time, money and working hands, this category is much more likely to feature films that are innovative, author-driven and international (in the last 20 years, the Best Animated Short winner went to an American production only 6 times). Going through a list of past winners and nominees, I discovered the films of Alexandr Petrov, Torill Kove, Mark Baker and others. The wonderful and diverse films financed by the National Film Board of Canada are a regular presence. 1992 nominee „The Sandman” by Paul Berry is still one of my favourite animated shorts ever. What I’m trying to say is: there are usually good chances of finding in this category an interesting film that will stick with you for a long time, and this is what I’ve learned to expect from the shorts: more ground-breakers than crowd-pleasers.
Which brings us to 2013, when we have to choose between the following:
Paperman (by Disney Studios, directed by John Kahrs) is a sweet little film. That’s pretty much all I can say about it, story-wise: pleasant, heartwarming, unremarkable. It’s a very calculated romance meant to make couples go „Awww!”, not that there’s anything wrong with that. However, most of the buzz surrounding „Paperman” was not about the story, but about its groundbreaking technique, in which CGI and hand-drawn animation are mixed together to produce a look that captures the visual flair and charm of old cartoons all the while using the latest technology available. The result is very polished and pretty, but it made me wonder…why? Why spend so much money and resources on making CGI „look like 2D”, when they could have simply made it a 2D cartoon with similar results? Another thing I’m less than thrilled with are the character designs- Disney girls, in particular, have looked the same for the last 80 years or so, and they all seem to be the same person with interchangeable hairdos, like a mannequin used as a stand for different wigs. Isn’t it time to hire a new designer? So what we’re left with is a cute film that is more than just a bit overhyped.
Fresh Guacamole (directed by PES) is typical of its maker: a very short stop-motion piece without much of a narrative, showcasing the way PES uses unconventional materials. His first film „Roof Sex” featured two armchairs having, well, sex on the roof of a building. In „Guacamole”, just like in one of his older pieces, „Western Spaghetti”, unedible items such as dice, grenades and golf balls and are used as ingredients for cooking, building upon visual analogies which are very clever and bold the first time around (and at the same time remind one of Jan Svankmajer), but, like I mentioned, PES has done it before and it’s no longer surprising for someone who knows his work (like myself, ahem). I’m sure, however, that people who see this short for the first time find it very innovative and smart, it does have visual wit if nothing else, and it’s refreshing to see such an unusual short receiving attention at the Oscars. Still, it’s all very one-note, so PES is an unlikely winner for the award and it feels like they wasted a slot which could have been given to a more developed film.
„Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare” (directed by David Silverman) puts the spotlight on the least developed member of the Simpson family (an understandable flaw given the fact that she’s a toddler), from the eponymous animated sitcom The Simpsons. The five-minute film, which is not freely available online yet, finds Maggie in an Objectivist daycare, complete with Ayn Rand dolls, where children are separated according to their level of intelligence as assessed by a machine, amongst other things. It’s a somewhat amusing bite-size of Simpsons humour (if very dated- really, does anybody care about Ayn Rand in 2013? How many younger people have even heard of her?) but coming from a hugely successful franchise and money making machine like The Simpsons, it feels more like more soulless corporate promotion rather than a legitimate artistic attempt. It’s just another excuse to get Simpsons-branded stuff out there, and a fairly transparent one. Another slot wasted.
„Adam and Dog”, an independent project by Disney animator Minkyu Lee, tells the tale of the friendship between the first man on earth according to the Biblical myth, and the first dog. Along with „Paperman”, this is another film which has received heaps of praise and hype. Most of all, the film will appeal to pet lovers: the dog is adorable, some of its dog mannerisms (like pacing around in a circle before going to sleep) are instantly recognizable to dog owners, and the endless loyalty and love of a dog will never cease to be a source of likeable stories. The problem is that the Adam and Eve myth is not a likeable story to begin with, what with being a thoroughly misogynyst and twisted story according to which women are to blame for essentially everything and the human race was created through incest (how can it be possible to end up with 7 billion people starting with just 2, otherwise?), and if it’s going to be dug up, I’d like to see it challenged and re-interpreted instead of re-enforced by conventional storylines. On top of it, the film is very slow paced and I found myself…bored. I’m sorry. My artistic heart must be dead or something.
The only student film in competition is „Head over Heels”, the story of a middle-aged couple who find themselves estranged from each other to such a degree that they literally inhabit different gravities: one of them walks on the floor, the other, on the ceiling. This was the film that I liked most out of the five nominees: the premise is original enough, the protagonists accept it as a normal part of their lives (I like it when the bizarre is treated as mundane), and the relationship crisis is resolved by the characters themselves and not through a Deus Ex Machina intervention like in „Paperman”. Instead of „the Universe conspires to bring two people together” we have „the Universe conspires to keep two people apart, but they make efforts to overcome this because they love each other ”. It’s a much more earnest, true-to-life message that still manages to be uplifting. This short is also quite slow-paced as well, though, and in terms of its look and animation quality it’s the least polished of the competitors (the puppets are not very pretty to look at). The film is made by Timothy Reckart and Fodhla Cronin O’Reilly, graduates of the National Film and Television School in Britain, and I’m rooting for them because I’m always rooting for young underdogs.
Overall I would say we are dealing with an underwhelming batch of nominees this year. Some would say that the increased involvement of big studios in short films means the category is getting stronger- I would say it is getting weaker. More interesting films, such as Emma de Swaef’s „Oh Willy!” and „The Eagleman Stag” by Michael Please, or Don Hertzfeldt’s philosophical „A Beautiful Day”, were unfairly overlooked for Oscar nominations.
The winner will probably be decided between „Paperman” and „Adam and Dog”, so, whatever the result, we can chalk the victory to the house of Mickey Mouse, at least in spirit.
