Oscars 101: Best Animated Short Film

In which I run down on the nominees (and likely winners) of the Academy Awards.

Every year it seems like the short film categories - Best Animated Short Film, Best Live Action Short Film and Best Documentary Short Subject - are the biggest stabs in the dark to predict.  With the sole exception of whatever that year's Pixar short is, I've never had the opportunity to see the nominees, so it's often chosen based off of what the title sounds like.  This weekend, however, I had the opportunity to see a screening of all of the Oscar nominated Live Action and Animated short films (plus a few honorable mentions), meaning that I finally have an informed opinion on the subject of who can (and should) win come Oscar Night.  This year's nominees are:

The Bigger Picture
The Dam Keeper
Feast
Me and My Moulton
A Single Life

It utterly floors me that the visually sublime Duet somehow did not make the list of nominees.  It is without question the definitive best short film that I have ever seen, beating out perennial favorite Un Chien Andalou.  And, if pressed, I would call it my favorite overall animated film.  Yes, a silent, four-minute long short film beat out feature length masterpieces like The Lion King, Spirited Away and Finding Nemo.  If you have not seen it already, I implore you to stop what you're doing right now and check it out here.

The Bigger Picture - Without a doubt, The Bigger Picture is the most uniquely animated film among the nominees, combining stop-motion animation with 2-D paintings literally etched onto the walls.  And like the best films of its kind, its unconventional animation style is no gimmick: but a fully integrated part of its story.  When one character steps in front of a cabinet (causing his 2-D upper body to become imprinted to the door), his brother opens it, literally splitting the man in half.  The juxtaposition of styles causes the stop-motion segments to more visibly pop against the otherwise flat animation and the 2-D animation to sink even further into the background in which it imprints itself.

Beyond its intelligent, visually cognizant style, it is an incredibly touching story of an old woman being cared for by a devoted son whose less devoted (but no less loving) brother seems to get all of the attention.  Its a quiet meditation on our mortality and the sometimes difficult family bonds that so often define our time together.

The Dam Keeper - In a category that often goes light in order to appeal to kids (ie, Feast), The Dam Keeper could hardly get any darker.  It is the story of a orphaned Pig who insistently maintains the town's windmill which keeps a malevolent darkness at bay.  His neighbors and classmates, however, openly despise him: bullying him for being a "dirty pig."  When seemingly betrayed by his only friend, he allows the darkness - manifested as some kind of entropic rot - consume the town, only to realize after the fact just how wrong he was.

The Dam Keeper is a sobering take on isolation, bullying and the redeeming power of friendship.  It is without a doubt my favorite of the nominated short films and the likeliest candidate to win the prize.

Feast - If Oscars were awarded for cuteness, Feast would be the obvious front-runner.  It combines Pixar's crisp animation style with their penchant for quietly heartwarming yet wildly comedic stories.  And given that this is the only nominee to be widely seen by general audiences, it has a uncanny confidence in its audience to invest themselves into a wordless story of a dog and his owner's rocky romance with a local waitress.

Although certainly the only mainstream success of the group, there's not much going on underneath the surface a dog's twin loves of master and food.  It doesn't have The Dam Keeper's emotional resonance, A Single Life's manic intelligence or The Bigger Picture's visual flair.

Me and My Moulton - In a category that seems to be increasingly defined by visually innovative style and inflated dramaticism, Me and My Moulton takes the category back to square one.  Making use of an almost childishly simple animation style and a quietly intelligent story, it seeks to show that simply being a good story well told is enough to warrant attention.

This short film is sure to earn the respect (and, more importantly, votes) of animation traditionalists, but I simply cannot believe that it will be enough to edge out much better fare (particularly The Dam Keeper).  It's a lot like A Christmas Story, actually: depicting a single episode of one woman's adolescence - relating, although not delving too deeply into, her relationship with her family, friends and neighbors.  So while it is enjoyably well made, it doesn't offer much of anything memorable by the time it ends.

A Single Life - Although only clocking in at two minutes, A Single Life is a manically energetic little film that most people, if afforded the chance to watch it, would invariably enjoy.  A woman finds a record on her doorstep whose song inexplicably controls time.  Speeding up the recording conversely speeds up the passage of time, while rewinding it likewise reverses the same.

Despite its brevity, the film manages to explore its Kafkan premise to its full potential.  Its red-headed protagonist speeds up time to breeze past her bachelorhood, while traversing skipping tracks, watching her pregnant stomach expand and contract like a child with a new toy, and then accidentally fast forward to an untimely death when the record ends.  If the Academy leans toward lightly intelligent films, A Single Life is the perfect choice to be crowned on the 22nd.

Safe Bet:  The Dam Keeper

Long Shot:  Me and My Moulton

Longer Shot:  A Single Life

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