It’s awards season, baybeeeeeee, and since this is the first time in quite a while that I’d already seen all of the heavy hitters prior to nomination day, I have the free time to check out the various shorts programs. Typically these are a mixed bag, with the animated program being the most consistent. This year’s animated shorts are exactly what I expected. What can I say? I’m not a big animation guy.
The Three Sisters (dir. Konstantin Bronzit)
A marvel of minimalist animation, this small but mighty comedy tells the story of, you guessed it, three sisters, all of whom reside on a small island. When some lost cash forces them to take on a roommate to cut costs, in comes a burly sailor, whose presence causes the trio of women to change their behavior in a variety of comical ways.
It’s a silent affair in terms of dialogue, hearkening back to one-off Merry Melodies shorts that don’t feature any of the beloved core characters. It’s a light affair, played for laughs, and I’m told that the “three women competing for a man” angle has received some pushback. I mean, sure, yeah, but it’s not that deep.
Forevergreen (dir. Nathan Englehardt & Jeremy Spears)
Easily my least favorite of the program, largely because the animation, as beautiful as it is, feels part and parcel with Pixar, which in its own way has become the house style of “elevated” cartoons, and is thus sorta bland to me. Even so, I’ll never not be impressed by animation due to how painstaking the process must be, but I’d like more than just a craft showcase when it comes to animated films. Here, the craft is used in service of a boilerplate story: a small bear is friends with a sentient tree, and despite the tree’s wisdom, the bear wants MORE!
It’s cute enough, and feels as Disney adjacent as can be on just about every level. And much like most Disney output these days, it left me unmoved. That said, these animators know what they’re doing, and given more resources I bet they’d make something incredible. I’m not rooting for this one to win, but if it did, that would be the silver lining.
The Girl Who Cried Pearls (dir. – Chris Lavis & Maciek Szcerzerbowski)
Visually, this is the strongest of the nominees, existing somewhere between Anomalisa and the Quay Brothers. Is it stop-motion? CGI? Both? Whatever it is, it’s truly marvelous to behold, and the bulk of the story, in which an elderly rich man regales his granddaughter with the origin story for a pair of pearls in his collection of expensive baubles, is utterly captivating. But the film’s final moments take an uninspired turn that robs the preceding film of a bit of its magic.
But perhaps that’s the point? Perhaps that’s how I’m supposed to feel? If so, well done. If not, ehhhhhh.
Mostly I’m left wondering if it hurts as bad to cry a pearl as it does to pass a kidney stone.
Butterfly/Papillon (dir. Florence Miailhe)
Similar to Loving Vincent, the animation for this entry is compiled of a sequence of hand-painted images, strung together to create motion while also preserving the texture of every brush stroke. This allows for a level of surrealism that, for all the real world material of the story, lends itself to the beautiful haze of long term memory.
Here it’s applied to tell the story of a swimmer whose long and tragic life ties to water in myriad ways, both good and bad. We learn who he is and how his aquatic talents have shaped his experience through joy and pain across a turbulent period of time. Naturally, given that this film partially takes place in a Holocaust setting, it will win the Oscar. Thems the rules! It certainly wouldn’t be an undeserved win, even of this wasn’t my particular cup of tea.
Retirement Plan (dir. John Kelly)
This short feels and looks like something you’d see online as part of a motivational meme package. This isn’t an insult — it’s my favorite of the nominees. In it we follow Ray, an average middle aged man listing off all of the things he’d like to do once retirement grants him the freedom his lofty (and not so lofty) aspirations require. This, I’m sure, is universally relatable, and certainly hit home for me (especially since it’s unlikely I’ll ever retire now that we live in a fascistic kleptocracy run by evil morons).
From average hopes to hobbies to vacations, Ray muses on what he’ll finally be able to do once he’s got the freedom to do it. It’s cute, quippy, and fun, but not without the melancholic presence of knowledge that death comes for us all, and for many of us, it comes before we retire. Best to get busy living instead of writing cheeky capsule reviews of short films.
