Four stars. Not rated, with some of the live-action entries probably too intense for children
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.9.18
The live-action Academy
Award-nominated short subjects are an ideal bellwether of national and
international anxiety, and this year’s crop is no exception.
Hollywood responds slowly to
social angst and hot-button political topics; feature films can’t help their
lengthy gestation period. Short subjects, on the other hand, can be planned,
produced and released quickly enough to tap into current events.
Three of this year’s five
nominees make it clear that violence — particularly racial and religious
violence — remains a subject of deep concern to filmmakers.
The animated nominees, as also
often is the case, offer the relief of gentle humor.
American writer/director Kevin
Wilson Jr.’s My Nephew Emmett, the
stand-out live-action entry, dramatizes the dreadful incident that took place
in Money, Miss., at 2:30 a.m. Aug. 28, 1955, when 14-year-old Emmett Till was
hauled out of bed by brutal white racists. The 20-minute film is anchored by
L.B. Williams’ dignified starring performance as Mose Wright, the 64-year-old
sharecropper and preacher forced to watch, helplessly, as his nephew was driven
away.
Wilson relates the story
economically, deftly sketching the loving relationship between Mose and his
wife Elizabeth (Jasmine Guy), and their delight over hosting Chicago-based
Emmett (Joshua Wright) for a visit. Laura Valladao’s cinematography is
terrific; Mose’s early evening trek to a water pump is framed beautifully
against the setting sun.
The script is subtle, with just
enough foreshadowing to alert savvy viewers — even those unfamiliar with
history — about what is to come.
The atmosphere of nervous tension
morphs rapidly into full-blown terror during a savage climax, after which
Wilson cuts to archival footage of the actual Mose Wright, while he begins to
recount what happened that night (a clip taken from the PBS documentary Eyes on the Prize, and readily available
online).
Anxiety and terror also are evident
in director Katja Benrath’s Watu Wote
(All of Us), a German/Kenyan co-production that dramatizes what took place
on Dec. 21, 2015, when Al-Shabaab militants attacked a bus traveling from
Somalia to Mandera, Kenya. An initial text crawl explains that a decade of such
attacks has heightened the mistrust between Muslims and the frequently targeted
Christians.
The taut script — by Julia
Drache, Alexander Ikawah and Brian Munene — focuses on Jua (Adelyne Wairimu), a
young Christian woman making the 31-hour journey in order to visit her sick
mother. Wairimu’s performance is largely silent, her wary gaze displaying a
tightness that suggests something — suspicion? anger? hostility? — when she
must sit next to a Muslim woman and her young daughter.
Jua’s tension increases when
forced to converse with Salah Farah (Abdiwali Farrah), a Muslim teacher
dismayed — and saddened — when she rebuffs him. What subsequently occurs speaks
volumes about the nobility of human kindness, even in the face of mortal
danger. Benrath’s approach is as powerful as the events themselves.
The same cannot be said of writer/director
Reed Van Dyk’s DeKalb Elementary,
which is inspired by an actual 911 call placed during a school shooting episode
in Atlanta, Ga. Given the appalling number of such incidents already having
taken place in a year that’s only five weeks old, it’s impossible not to flinch
when a grade school front office is invaded by a deeply disturbed young man
toting a semi-automatic rifle and a backpack stuffed with ammunition.
The film is essentially a
two-hander, with Bo Mitchell chilling as the disheveled and overweight gunman,
and Tarra Riggs persuasively terrified as the office administrator who becomes
the intruder’s telephone liaison with the outer world. The situation screams
imminent catastrophe, but — once the crisis kicks off — Van Dyk’s handling is
oddly flat, and the outcome rather anticlimactic.
British director Chris Overton’s The Silent Child is this category’s
stealth candidate: a poignant, initially charming little piece that builds to a
heartbreaking and instructive conclusion.
Cute-as-a-button Maisie Sly plays
Libby, a profoundly deaf 4-year-old all but ignored by parents and older
siblings too involved with themselves and each other. The dynamic shifts with
the arrival of Joanne (Rachel Shenton), a cheerful and perceptive social worker
who begins to teach Libby how to communicate via sign language.
Their growing bond doesn’t go
unnoticed by the little girl’s condescending mother (Rachel Fielding), which
leads to a conclusion — and a final close-up of Libby’s forlorn face — that is utterly heartbreaking.
This deeply touching film would get my vote for the Oscar, but Overton’s gentle
touch is bound to be overshadowed by My
Nephew Emmett or Watu Wote.
Director Derin Seale’s The Eleven O’Clock, lastly, is a droll
bit of Australian whimsy: an increasingly confused encounter between a
psychiatrist and his delusional patient, who believes that he’s the psychiatrist ... or is it the other way around? Josh
Lawson and Damon Herriman have a lot of fun with the rapid-fire dialogue.
Shifting to the animated medium,
Glen Keane’s Dear Basketball is the
high-profile contender, with its hand-drawn depiction of Kobe Bryant and the
sports dream that inspired him from early childhood. The pencil-sketch
animation style is charming, and the deeply moving background score comes from
no less than John Williams. The “story” is adapted from the retirement letter
that Bryant wrote in late 2015.
But while the presentation is
inspirational, the overall tone feels boastful and self-indulgent; one can’t
help feeling that Bryant is rather full of himself.
France’s Garden Party is a stunner. This 7-minute mood piece boasts a level
of photo-realistic animation that looks like live action: all the more
impressive because of its focus on small, fast-moving frogs and insects, a
debris-laden pool, and the opulent contents of a lavish but apparently deserted
house.
The film is credited to six
directors — Florian Babikian, Vincent Bayoux, Victor Caire, Théophile Dufresne,
Gabriel Grapperon and Lucas Navarro — and their work is simply amazing. The frog’s-eye-view of the
action initially is amusing, then mildly puzzling, and ultimately even
mysterious, right up to the unexpected conclusion.
And I can’t help wondering, based
on what seems a familiar figure depicted in the eye-blink glimpse of a painting
on one wall, if Babikian et al are
indulging in a bit of pointed satire.
Pixar often posts an entry in
this category, and Dave Mullins’ slickly animated LOU upholds the studio’s tradition of clever, dialogue-less
storytelling. The setting is a grade school playground, as a toy-stealing bully
ruins recess for all the other children ... until he encounters the mysterious
whatzit that inhabits the “lost and found” box resting alongside the classroom
door.
As also is Pixar’s custom,
Mullins anthropomorphizes a most
unusual creature, granting it intelligence, sensitivity, curiosity and a sense
of humor ... all conveyed entirely via behavior and action.
Ru Kuwahata and Max Porter’s Negative Space, also from France, is an
odd little piece. (This Oscar category always includes one or two entries that
make me wonder what the nominating judges were smoking that day.)
The stop-motion animation is competent
but not very appealing, and the “story” — actually a visualization of a 2014
poem by Ron Koertge — concerns a 12-year-old boy who connects with his father,
who travels frequently, via their shared interest in efficiently arranged
luggage.
“My dad taught me to pack,” the
poem begins. “Lay out everything. Put back half.” And so it continues. But
although this 6-minute animated adaptation builds to the same mordant final
line, Koertge did so much more economically, with only 150 words.
At 29 minutes, the UK’s Revolting Rhymes is by far the longest
entry, but it certainly doesn’t wear out its welcome. Co-directors Jakob Schuh
and Jan Lachauer have a merry old time adapting Roald Dahl’s 1982 collection of
poems: quirky takes on familiar fairy tales — chiefly “Little Red Riding Hood,”
“Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and “The Three Little Pigs” — that conclude
in a manner most unfamiliar, thanks
to the author’s deliciously wicked sense of humor.
Schuh and Lachauer modeled their
computer-animated style on the Quentin Blake illustrations that accompanied
Dahl’s poems in the book: a sleek, wooden-doll look that recalls George Pal’s
classic Puppetoons shorts from the 1930s and ’40s. The thoroughly delightful
result will be adored by those who enjoy their fairy tales fractured or bent;
the well-cast voice talent features Dominic West (as the Wolf), Gemma Chan and
Rose Leslie, among others.
The intertwined storylines build
to a climax pregnant with anticipation, which could be viewed as ironic ...
but, in fact, it’s a cliff-hanger: This Oscar-nominated piece is only the first
part of a saga that runs half an hour longer. (The second half is readily
available on DVD and the usual streaming options.)
If
you’re fed up with the junk populating mainstream movie theaters during these
doldrums of late winter, give this touring show a try (locally at Sacramento’s
Crest Theater). Good things truly do come in small packages.
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