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.