Best Animated Short Film of 2013

Feral is really quite an ugly film. I thought it was poorly drawn and poorly animated, almost amateurish in its execution. I suppose some would call it experimental, but to me, the experiment failed. The film tells the story of a boy raised by wolves who is “adopted” and brought to civilization, only to have his adoptive father discover that the animal he has been raised to be still resides within him. I suppose it’s a meditation on our true natures and a bit of a rehash of the nature-versus-nurture debate. I just couldn’t find it all that interesting, and I even started to pay way too much attention to the child’s teeth, which he bares much too frequently. The murky nature of the wordless movie isn’t helped by the somewhat clichéd storyline, and the limited color palette (mostly just dark greys and blacks) makes for an unpleasant viewing experience.

Get a Horse! is a fun, lovely tribute to the history of animation, from flip books to 3-D technology. Mickey Mouse and Minnie and friends are enjoying an old-fashioned hay ride when they are attacked by Peg Leg Pete. This Disney short features such a fascinating mix of different styles from different eras, ranging from the black-and-white early versions of these characters and others in the Disney fold to the bright, glossy, brilliant colors used today. The clever way that the film incorporates the past and the present into its plot, especially during one particularly raucous session involving jumping in and out of the movie screen, makes this short perhaps the most fun to watch. It’s an absolutely charming film that tells a great story and uses our long-standing love of cartoons to captivate us.

Mr. Hublot might be an homage to the French character of Mr. Hulot, but this short is really a tightly focused examination of how seemingly innocent small actions can have a profound influence on our day-to-day existence. Mr. Hublot lives alone in what appears to be an abandoned warehouse building. Actually, all of the buildings in this film appear to be abandoned warehouses, but I digress. The film is set during some sort of mechanized future, and Mr. Hublot, who appears to be at least partially mechanical himself, suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder or anal retentiveness, which means that he has a very specific routine that he follows each day. Only when he adopts an abandoned robot dog does the rigid pattern of his life become more broken and actually happier. As the dog keeps growing bigger and bigger, Mr. Hublot has to keep finding ways to adjust, and the film keeps trying to make a sweet statement about making room for new experiences in our lives.

Possessions begins with a samurai trapped in a rainstorm seeking shelter in an apparently abandoned home. It’s a small structure, but one with a lot of life still inside it. All of the objects in the house are seemingly possessed—hence the title. There’s a series of umbrellas that the samurai repairs, covering up the eyes that peek through the rips and tears in the fabric. He’s attacked by yards of fabric and must sew the pieces together to fashion a beautiful robe. He’s also forced to confront a dragon made of junk that keeps emitting foul odors. Once I learned that this film was sort of a prototype for a videogame, I understood why I found it hard to stay awake while watching it. Despite being rather beautiful at times, it’s actually pretty slow moving, but I’m assuming the game console will help to speed things along.

Room on the Broom is another film from the makers of The Gruffalo, a short that was nominated in this same category in 2010. Gillian Anderson voices a witch who is traveling with her cat and encounters a series of animals who all want to join her on the broom. Eventually, the witch and the cat wind up with a dog, a green bird, and very fastidious frog riding along with them, and that makes for some difficulties taking off and landing and with keeping items on the broom itself. There’s also a dragon who chases them and causes a lot of havoc. Anderson doesn’t get to speak very much, and it’s the cat who steals the movie with its expressive face, particularly its marvelous sense of exasperation at having to share the broom with the other characters. This is a charming film, but it’s a bit repetitive and is obviously aimed at smaller children.

Oscar Winner: Mr. Hublot. This choice continues a trend in recent years of choosing dystopian kinds of shorts to honor. I found it to be an interesting film overall, but it doesn’t engage one’s heart so much as one’s mind. It’s mostly an intellectual exercise with, admittedly, a few delights.

My Choice: Get a Horse! is a loving tribute to the growth and development of animation since its beginnings in the 1920s. It’s a technologically advanced film which nevertheless seeks to set a nostalgic tone. This is a perfectly delightful little movie and the most fully realized vision of any of the nominees. I particularly loved that the black-and-white image that begins the film is displayed by plush red curtains of the kind you might have seen in a very upscale theater at the start of moviegoing.

Best Live Action Short Films of 2013

Even though Aguel No Era Yo (That Wasn't Me) is a Spanish film, most of its action takes place in Africa and much of its dialogue is in English, making it perhaps the most international of the five nominees. Two doctors/medical aid workers and their guide are taken prisoner in an unnamed African country by a group of boy soldiers and their leader, the General. Most of the boys are in the General's "army" because they have apparently been orphaned in ongoing civil violence against the government, and they have fallen under the spell of a man who has taken over the role of stern father figure who pumps them up with claims of future glory and reward. The sequence of events involving and following the kidnapping is quite harrowing to watch. Part of the film is set years after the kidnapping, as one of the boy soldiers, "Corporal" Kaney, recounts for a school assembly what his experiences were like and how he had to disassociate himself psychologically to do some of the brutal actions that he did. This is a very intriguing film about an issue that deserves great attention, and it could easily be expanded into a full length film.

The longest short—yes, I realize how oxymoronic that sounds—Is the French film Avant Que de Tout Perdre (Just Before Losing Everything). It concerns the attempt by Miriam, a department store clerk, to escape with her two children from an abusive relationship. That they are on the run is not apparent until about ten minutes into this thirty-minute gem of a movie. We can sense that something stressful is happening as Miriam picks up her son Julien, who is skipping school, and her daughter Josephine, who is distraught over having to leave her boyfriend. After she arrives at the store and tries to get some of her salary in order to have money to leave, Miriam and her daughter and son face a series of tension-building moments. One of the most intriguing aspects of this short is its ability to delineate sharply the different personalities of Miriam's co-workers. It's a masterful film, full of strong performances and depth of characterization.

Helium is a touching film about the friendship between Enzo, a hospital janitor, and Alfred, a terminally ill little boy whose room Enzo cleans. After sensing Alfred's fear of death, Enzo begins telling the boy about a place called Helium, an obvious allegory for Heaven but one which uses the boy's love of airships and hot air balloons to comfort him. This Danish film depicts the make-believe world of Helium in enchanting detail; it reminded me at times of a sunnier, sparklier version of those islands in the air of Avatar. Enzo enlists the help of one of Alfred's nurses so that he can tell Alfred the entire story that he's made up, and the final shot is quite touching.

Pitaako Mun Kaikki Hoitaa? (Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?) clocks in at just about seven minutes long, but it manages to pack in a lot of action in that brief period. This Finnish film shows the frantic preparations a family makes to get to a wedding on time. Almost everything goes wrong from the moment that they fail to wait up when the alarm clock rings. My favorite moment occurs when the two daughters, after their mother has told them to put on the kinds of clothes people wear to parties (because the nice dresses they were going to wear the wedding are still in the washing machine), emerge dressed as a witch and as Pippi Longstocking. It's a cute but rather insubstantial film.

The Voorman Problem is the only one of the films with international star power. Martin Freeman, taking a break from his Hobbit duties, portrays a psychiatrist called to a prison to examine the title character played by Tom Hollander. Voorman claims that he is a god or the God, and Freeman's Dr. Williams must determine whether or not to have the prisoner declared insane before he causes a riot among the inmates who have started to accept Voorman's claims. A lot of this short is just Freeman and Hollander (usually confined by a straitjacket) talking across a table, but there are a couple of moments that flesh out Dr. Williams' life outside the prison walls, and there are several contemporary references that date the events being depicted. It's a clever enough film, I suppose, but it coasts primarily on the charm of its two lead actors, and the twist at the end is not as surprising as the filmmakers might have expected it to be.

Oscar Winner: Helium. This is a heartfelt film that displays a great deal of tenderness toward the boy and his fears of dying. Handling such delicate subject matter requires a difficult balancing act, and this short film is always honest in its depictions of what the boy and the janitor are experiencing. 

My Choice: Either Aguel No Era Yo and Avant Que de Tout Perdre. Both are fully developed, fully realized stories that are gripping and intense. I'd have a tough time choosing between them, given that they are both quite polished work and deal with important subject matter (maybe that should be Important Subject Matter) in such an emotional yet sincere way. I'd probably give a slight edge to the French film because the characters are so well written and realistic in their actions.