The “Academy Award-Nominated Shorts: Animation” category this year is solid, if not spectacular, beginning with Iranian filmmaker Yegane Moghaddam’s entry “Our Uniform.” The film, which utilizes 2D and stop-motion techniques, is shot upon a uniform of the title. The point is that it is an imprisoning item of clothing designed to make its female wearers all look the same, while being asked by their indoctrinated teachers to chant such slogans as “Down with USA,” “Down with Israel” and “Down with England.” Without criticizing the country’s regime directly, Moghaddam has created a work of art that is also a cry for freedom and women’s equality.
Another combination of several film-making techniques, “Letter to a Pig” from Israeli filmmaker Tal Kantor tells the story of an old man’s recollection of how he survived the Holocaust as a boy on the run from his own neighbors and the reaction of a girl hearing the old man’s story. Visually and in terms of content, the film is devastating. The boy spends weeks hiding in a pigsty, sharing the pigs’ food and living space and coming to have sympathy for the “impure beast.” Meanwhile, inspired by the old man’s experience, the girl embarks on her own pig-related inner voyage.
Stephanie Clement’s dream-like “Pachyderme” starts out as a conventional coming-of-age story about an 11-year-old girl named Louise who stays for 10 days with her grandparents in Provence. The simple, colorful, seemingly hand-painted images grow increasingly shadowy and then merge with 3D animated images that become disorienting and distressing. We see “eyes” in a wood-grained ceiling, and, seeking escape, Louise disappears into the wallpaper. In one shot an adult’s hands look like the hands of a giant compared to Louise’s. Mood music by Olivier Milton (“L’Oiseau”) is a big plus. “Pachyderme” is a tale of how we learn to suppress some things from our past and cherish others.
Everything in “Ninety-Five Senses” looks black-and-white except for the occasional flash of color. Produced using a variety of animation techniques, the film, which is given a great boost by voice actor Tim Blake Nelson, tells the story of the final ruminations of a man convicted of multiple hideous murders and awaiting execution. He laments the “hillbilly genes” that got him into trouble and worries about the wife he leaves behind. A final discussion of the order in which our senses shut down in death recalls the classic “Dead Man Walking.” “Ninety-Five Senses” is a haunting product of MAST, a film-making collective of the Salt Lake Film Society.
“War Is Over!: Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko” is another rotoscoped effort, this one set on a WWI battlefield, where two members of opposing forces are engaged in a gentlemanly game of chess, using a carrier pigeon to deliver the moves to each other, a pastime in strong contrast to the barbarity of war. As the bird crosses the skies to fly from one camp to another, anti-aircraft fire blasts around it, and explosions appear all over the ground. Produced by Sean Lennon and Peter Jackson and directed by Pixar animator Dave Mullins (“Incredibles 2”) – with help from Peter Jackson’s WetaFX – the film was co-written by Mullins and Lennon. It is surely the slickest, most expensive-looking nominee by far. Lennon’s intent is to give another life to some of his parents’ most important and memorable music for a new generation. An Oscar-nominated short film is certainly one way to go about it.
In addition to the five Academy Award nominees, theatergoers who pay to see this package of films will also see the Marianne Faithful-narrated, offbeat nature tale “Wild Summon” and “I’m Hip,” a jazzy riff on a literal cool cat from Disney veteran John Musker (“Aladdin”).
“Academy Award-Nominated Shorts: Animation”
Rated PG-13/R. At the Coolidge Corner Theater.
Grade: B+
