If
you are looking for a unifying theme among this year’s live action short film
Oscar nominees, several address the responsibilities of parents and the extent
to which the wider society can complement or replace the family unit. Of
course, there is also the ringer that cannot be shoehorned into a handy rubric.
All five nominees screen as part of the annual showcase of Academy Award
nominated shorts, which opens tomorrow at the IFC Center in New York.
Frankly,
Sini and Jokke are not bad parents. They are just kind of a mess in Selma
Vilhunen’s Do I Have to Take Care of
Everything? Nearly over sleeping an important wedding, they still manage to
schlep their two young daughters over to the chapel, despite a series of minor
disasters. Everything is pleasant and
amusing, but only an inch deep and seven minutes long.
In
contrast, Esteban Crespo’s That Wasn’t Me
seems to expect a round of applause just for dramatizing the child-soldier
issue. Married Spanish doctors have come to an African war zone as part of a
humanitarian mission, but their safe passage documents do not impress one
warlord. The horrific crimes that follow will be done at his behest by young
orphans pressed into his so-called army. Discussing his crimes after the fact,
one former child-soldier explains how the guerilla commander exploited their
need for a sense of family and belonging.
There
are scenes in TWM that are genuinely shocking.
While it serves as a timely reminder of the appalling lack of human rights
throughout the continent, the film feels rather programmatic, like a calculated
statement rather than a fully realized drama in its own right.
When
it comes to pulling on heartstrings, none of the shorts can compete with Anders
Walter’s Helium (trailer here), but it earns
its sentiment through honest hard work and artistry. Alfred’s parents are
caring and conscientious, but that cannot change the fact he is dying of a
terminal disease. His mother constantly tells him he is going to Heaven, but
the harps and white robes do not do much for him. Enzo, the clutzy new janitor,
has a better conception.
Reminded
of his late kid brother, who also shared a love for zeppelins and Jules Vernish
hot air balloons, Enzo starts telling Alfred about the world of Helium, a
steampunk-Boy’s Life alternative to
Heaven. For a while, Enzo’s vision of Helium lifts the boy’s spirits, but his
body soon takes a turn for the worse. Helium’s animated fantasyscapes are quite
richly rendered, bringing to mind about the only part of the What Dreams May Come movie that actually
worked. However, it is the chemistry between Casper Crump, Pelle Falk Krusbæk,
and Marijana Jankovic as Enzo, Alfred, and his understanding nurse that really
lowers the boom in Helium. Despite
the melodramatic aspects, viewers will feel moved rather than manipulated.
There
is also some pretty raw emotion in Xavier Legrand’s Just Before Losing Everything (trailer here), which is
arguably the best of this year’s live action nominees. Miriam is a battered
wife, who has finally decided to leave her husband. However, it will not be a
simple matter of walking out the door.
She must bundle up her kids and collect what money she can from the job
she must leave behind. Everyone at her Tesco-like superstore is sympathetic,
but uncomfortable and unsure how far they can go to help. Then her husband
shows up looking for the checkbook.
If
Helium boasts the strongest ensemble
of this year’s nominations, Losing features
the single strongest performance from Léa Drucker as Miriam. We so get all her
fear, vulnerability, and misplaced shame. Instead of yelling “look at me,” it
is work that hits you in the gut.
As
the odd man out, Mark Gill’s BAFTA nominated The Voorman Problem (trailer here) tells a self-consciously clever tale of
an emotionally disturbed prison inmate who thinks he is the almighty and the
nebbish shrink sent to evaluate him. There is witty bit of business involving
Belgium, but the ironic payoff is forced and perfunctory. Nonetheless, co-star Martin Freeman has
helped generate scads of revenue for the industry as Bilbo Baggins in the Hobbit trilogy and Watson in BBC/PBS’s Sherlock, so Voorman might have the inside track with the Academy.
