Brotherhood (Ikhwene) is set in Tunisia—the location for two of the shorts nominated in this category—at the home of a poor shepherd and his family. They live together in a one-room house. A prodigal son returns home after spending time fighting with ISIS, much to his father’s disapproval. The song also brings home a Syrian wife wearing a nigab, and their arrival demonstrates the tension between the Tunisians and the Syrians, at least on the part of the father. His wife is more supportive, even to the point of criticizing her husband’s behavior. The father’s skepticism and suspicious nature led to a heartbreaking conclusion. This is a sad movie that is only occasionally leavened by the fun of seeing the three red-haired sons interact with each other. The eldest regrets his decision to leave, but he’s too proud to admit it to his father. The tone of this film, like most of the ones nominated this year, is quite sad, a melancholy story. The cinematography is quite beautiful, but overall, Brotherhood is quite the somber short. Interesting sidenote: the film is a co-production of four countries, Canada, Tunisia, Qatar, and Sweden, an unusual mix, to say the least.
Nefta Football Club is also set in Tunisia, but it offers a somewhat more light-hearted plot than Brotherhood (or the other entries). Two young boys discover a donkey walking through the desert. It’s wearing a set of headphones and has been well trained to walk into Tunisia from a neighboring country. They realize that the donkey is carrying a lot of cocaine, and the two brothers decide to swipe it. To be fair, the younger brother doesn’t quite know what the white powder is; he mistakenly thinks it’s laundry detergent. The older brother knows exactly what it is, and he wants it so that he can get into the drug business and make some money for himself. Nefta Football Club offers some surprising humor, especially the ending. It’s really the funniest of the five options. The two guys who trained the donkey are quite funny, quite goofy in their bickering. The donkey’s disappearance results from a mix-up between the singer Adele and a Middle Eastern singer who seems to have a similar sounding name. One of them doesn’t understand who or what Pavlov (the scientist who gave us the theory of conditioning), and his friend’s exasperation is quite hilarious.
The Neighbors’ Window has a few fun moments, a few light-hearted laughs, but takes a rather dark turn about three-quarters through its run time. The premise seems inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window: a pregnant wife and her husband watch a couple in an apartment across the street; the new couple seems to be “breaking in” their new place by having sex with no shades or curtains serving as a barrier to voyeurs. The wife, in particular, becomes obsessed (although the husband has his moments) even to the point of using binoculars to watch while the lights in their apartment are dimmed to get a better view of the neighbors. By comparison, the people across the street have fun lives filled with parties and sex; meanwhile, the central couple are frequently tired from taking care of their three children. After the narrative shifts to a sadder outcome than originally anticipated, the focus seems to be demonstrating that you really shouldn’t be jealous of people you know very little about. The climax of The Neighbors’ Window actually ends up being rather unexpectedly upbeat and hopeful.
Saria depicts the horrifying abuse at a Guatemalan orphanage and the attempts by two sisters to develop a plan to escape to America. Saria, the title character, and her sister Ximena have few opportunities to talk when they aren’t being observed or harmed. The girls are raped, beaten, forced to do physical labor—a litany of corrupt mistreatment from those who are supposed to protect them and educate them. There are also apparently times when there’s no water for the girls to shower with. The boys at the orphanage join Saria, Ximena, and many of the girls in leaping from the building into a nearby tree. The police come after the escapees, and the brutal treatment at the orphanage will likely accelerate after their capture. The film is set at the same time as the Women’s March in Washington, D.C., that followed Trump’s inauguration in 2017, a momentary source of inspiration for the proto-feminist Saria. It’s based upon a real-life incident in which forty-one girls died in a fire. Saria, the short film (not the character), features some stellar camerawork and a great deal of narrative tension. It also features the fastest moving and perhaps the cleverest cockroach I’ve ever seen in a movie, an odd addition to such a serious story.
A Sister (Une soeur) is quite a harrowing film, a tense sixteen minutes. A young woman is in a car with a man. We’re not sure where they are headed, but she says she needs to call her sister. We listen to her side of the conversation, and then the film switches to an emergency call center where we discover that she’s actually called the Belgian equivalent of 911 instead. The viewer is never exactly certain what the man has done. Did he rape the woman? Kidnap her? A flashback reveals that there has been a sexual encounter, most likely without the woman’s full consent. The operator tries to decipher the clues that the woman gives, but the woman has to be very cryptic at times so as not to be caught by the man. The film goes back and forth between the woman in the car and the woman in the call center. A Sister could easily be expanded into a feature length film; the plot outlines are already there. We’d just need a bit more of what happened before the two people wind up in the car together and where they are headed.
Oscar Winner: The Neighbors’ Window, a very accomplished film with some very strong performances.
My Choice: Nefta Football Club balances very serious subject matter with some welcome moments of humor. In a field crowded with downbeat, depressing stories, it manages to inspire a range of emotional reactions.
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