It was Spring and time to make a drive down to the Detroit Institute of Arts in order to see the Academy Award Nominated animated short films program. My typical plan for this event is to show up a couple hours early and wander the museum drawing inspiration by the art, then have a nice meal, and finally watch the films. Sometimes my wanderings are to gather information for my History of Animation class. Other times, I'll thinking of a theme (like food) and search for works of art that match the theme. This time though, after looking at a few paintings, I found myself mostly seeking out three-dimensional art like glassware or sculptures.
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| Kingfisher, Cicada, and Willow Tree, from the Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting, 1700 Unknown Artist, China |
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| Vase with carnations, 1886 Vincent van Gogh |
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| Water Pitcher, "Pomona" Glass, 1885/86 New England Glass Company East Cambridge, Massachusetts |
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| Pandora, 1864 Chauncey Bradley Ives American, 1810-94 |
After some musings about how the artwork was produced--and the tremendous skill it must have taken--I strolled over to the Detroit Film Theater. The films selected for the program were a bit on the longer side, so it was only a five-film screening consisting of only those that were nominated. Usually the program has a couple extra films from those submitted but not nominated in order to pad out the presentation to a full hour-and-a-half (ish). But this time, there wasn't any need for extras. As Zippy Films was kind enough to post a list of all the shortlisted films back in December, I debated the merits of looking up some of those short-listed films (you can view that article here). Wild Summon by Saul Freed and Karni Arieli looked particularly interesting, albeit a tad gruesome. The trailer for Humo (Smoke) by Rita Basulto had some very interesting visuals that left me wondering CGI or stop-motion? And the trailer for Eeva, by Morten Tšinakov and Lucija Mrzljak, had both a visual style and story style that projected those quirky Eastern European sensibilities which would definitely appeal to me. Alas, these films got passed over, so will have to do some digging on the internet in the future to see if the filmmakers have uploaded them after their festival runs.
The films this year had a wide array of techniques and topics, though I suspect all had elements of CGI in their production processes, be it compositing, special effects, or animation.
Our Uniform [Iran]: This film had some interesting visuals--the animated short was made to look like all the characters, models, and backgrounds were made of fabric. But with regards to the story, I kinda felt like I'd already seen this film when I watched Persepolis back in 2007. Not a bad film, per se, but I had repeated feelings of déjà vu and was left wondering if the creator was inspired by Marjane Satrapi's feature (or graphic novels)?
Letter to a Pig [France, Israel] - I found the story in this film a little confusing. On the one hand, it was pretty straightforward: you have an elderly Jewish man telling the story of his experiences during the Holocaust to a classroom of kids who (on the surface at least) don't seem to be grasping the nuances of what he was talking about--they fidgeted, some looked bored, I seem to recall one being expelled from the room for being disruptive. The portion of him telling his story about hiding from the Nazis on a farm was rather engaging. But I wasn't sure about the point of the kids being disruptive. Was this an actual event or did the filmmaker script the kids' behavior for the film? Was the filmmaker trying to make the point that as more and more Holocaust survivors pass away, the younger generations become more and more detached from the horrors of their collective history? Then there was the girl who was visualizing the story she was being told before it drifted into daydreaming...
Well, over on the Hive Studio's YouTube channel, they have uploaded a pair of videos detailing filmmaker Tal Kantor's story and production process. I highly recommend watching them--especially the one on technique if you're a budding filmmaker. I found some of my questions being answered through this fascinating look into how she designed and constructed her film (videos aptly titled: 'The Story' and 'The Technique'). Others were left unresolved.
Interestingly enough, recently Tal Kantor popped up on my Facebook "Suggested Friends" list. Apparently we have ten mutual friends. After watching Letters to a Pig again, I might reach out to her and ask some questions about her film. This is one of those thought provoking animated shorts that I would really like to watch a couple more times to really let it sink in.
Pachyderm [France] - There were some really good visuals in this film--hauntingly beautiful imagery and solid animation technique--but sometimes the story being told is too abstract. During the screening, I didn't get the fact that it was about abuse. On the bright side, it did plant enough seeds within my consciousness that I looked up the film afterwards in order to get some more context and interpretation on the story. Even if they don't "get it" during the first viewing, I think that inspiring someone to look deeper into your film's premise outside of the screening is a pretty good thing.
Ninety-Five Senses [USA] - This film was a slow burn. An entertaining story told by an old man at the end of his days as he reminisces about his life. It was a very compelling story that drew me in from the start and ended with a startling reveal. Now, I'm not going to say that "this is the film that should've won", I've long since given up on trying to determine how the Academy members will vote. But what I will say is that if you only see one of the films nominated this year, it should definitely be this one.
War is Over [USA] - This was an nice film. A bit overly saccharine for my tastes, but it had a decent story (two soldiers on either sides of the war playing a game of chess with moves relayed by carrier pigeon). I honestly thought that it was more interesting to see how the film was created using Unreal Engine (using a video game engine to create an animated short film). What I think really made this film shine is that the concept was strong enough to stand on its own. I don't think that they needed the John Lennon song. Not saying the song's presence was bad or unnecessary, just that it was a solid concept with good storytelling and competent execution in and of itself.
So, all-in-all, I found this to be a very good program of films which were filled with a wide variety of animation techniques and visual styles. It was well worth the drive down to Detroit. Now, time to see what animated features the Detroit Film Theater will be showing this year so I can start planning return trips.
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