Well today's the big day! It's the day of the Oscar announcement, and the day we find out what five films will join in the annals of Oscar history of Best Animated Short nominees. Well, it's been three hours since the nominations were announced, so that isn't that much of a surprise anymore. However, this was an unprecedented year and all ten of the shortlisted films were made available for public consumption. Some of the films have been taken down by now, but as a result for the third time since I've been following this category, I have seen all five nominees on the day of the nomination announcement, and I can go ahead and post my review. I may try to make a showing, just because I do really like this particular crop of nominees.
As far as the rest of the nominations go, I'm afraid I haven't kept up with life action films as much. I do know that the Academy dropped their plans for a Best Popular Film category and just went ahead and nominated Black Panther for the award. The only other Best Picture nominee I saw was Bohemian Rhapsody and was somewhat underwhelmed. Yes, I still haven't seen BlackkKlansman, The Favourite, Green Book, Roma, A Star is Born, or Vice. I am 5/5 on the Best Animated Feature nominees: Incredibles 2, Isle of Dogs, Mirai, Ralph Breaks the Internet, and Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse. I will note that Mirai is the first animated film from Japan not made by Studio Ghibli to get a nomination in this category. Unfortunately, I still think Wolf Children is Mamoru Hosoda's stronger film.
And in case you're wondering, the Studio Ghibli films that got a nomination were Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, The Wind Rises, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, and When Marnie was There.
Anyways, I don't have much else to say about the other films, so let's just go to the reviews.
Welcome to Dr. Leonard Clement's group therapy session where you can share your anxieties and problems and learn how to be a better you. Meet Lorraine, a leech with separation anxiety and panic attacks. Then there's Cheryl, a praying mantis with an addiction to social media and an inability to find a long-term relationship due to her 1,000 kids and her habit of biting off her partners' head during sex. Jeffrey is a bird that suffers from repressed guilt over something he did as a chick. And finally there's Victor, an ape attending his first session with some anger problems and denials. What sort of excitement is going to happen in this session? Animal Behaviour is the latest film from Alison Snowden and David Fine, the husband-wife animation team that was nominated for an Oscar in 1987 for George and Rosemary and won one in 1994 for their film Bob's Birthday. Since then they made a spinoff show with Bob and Margaret, and then they helped work on the children's show Peppa Pig. They were busy with commercial animation, but Animal Behaviour is their first short film since winning an Oscar. With this film they go into the strange new world of mental health. The topic of mental health and its treatment has become a big issue the past couple of years. It is a real problem that afflicts millions of people around the world, but it is still met with a great deal of stigma and misunderstanding. People still think of the traditional psychoanalytic model where the patient lies on the couch and talks to a detatched provider. Really the field of psychotherapy has advanced a great deal since the Freudian days. There are new forms of therapy that address a cognitive and/or a behavioral model. The realm of group therapy has also become popular where the provider acts as a facilitator but other patients could also deliver some insights. Animal Behaviour acts out this group therapy model by modeling a session. The filmmakers put a twist on the concept by setting it in a world of anthropomorphized animals, where some of the issues that these animals deal with are based in some intrinsically learned behaviors, such as sexual cannibalism in the praying mantis and cats and some of their more compulsive behaviors. It does pose the question as to how much of any one individual's mental health problems are related to environmental issues or elements inherent in our genes, which is still a real discussion in the psychology community. The flow of the session does feel genuine. I've shown this film to several of my psychiatry friends that have done group therapy sessions of their own, and they often remark at how closely it resembles an actual group therapy session. Some of the more outrageous events that happens such as the provider sharing aspects of themselves or angry outbursts do happen in real sessions, which just makes the film a lot more entertaining. The animation for Animal Behaviour is very much like Snowden and Fine's other films. It has a deceptively simple design, but hidden in the work are numerous details. Animals in the background are active even while others are talking, doing things that fit in with their character. The room is simple, but the posters for books written by the therapist Dr. Clement is a nice touch. And the voice acting work is tremendous. Maybe I'm a bit biased because three of the voice actors share a connection with My Little Pony. Ryan Beil, the voice of Dr. Clement, played Zephyr Breeze in the episode "Flutter Brutter" and a few Equestria Girls shorts. Andrea Libman, who voiced Cheryl the praying mantis, is best known as the voice of Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy. And James Kirk, who is Jeffrey the bird, played the nerdy Micro Chips in a few Equestria Girls specials. And Alison Snowden herself voices Linda the cat. Either way, the cast does a tremendous job of bringing the character to life. Beil in particular is terrific. He possesses a soothing but professional voice that is quite different than that of Zephyr Breeze and the character he plays in some A&W commercials. Even if you aren't a fan of My Little Pony, Animal Behaviour is a highly entertaining film that addresses a relatively complex topic with humor.
Where Can I Watch It?
The film was made available online for a period of a week and a half, but it had since been taken down. Maybe it will be made available again, but you'd have to keep an eye on the film's NFB page.
Bao
A Chinese-Canadian woman makes a meal of steamed buns for her and her husband. He scarfs them down before heading to work, leaving her alone with her thoughts and her loneliness. As she bites down on her last bun, it cries out. She spits it out and watches in amazement as it comes to life, growing a body with arms and legs. She adopts the bun baby as her own, taking it out grocery shopping and doing tai-chi and sharing pastries together. As the years go by the bun baby grows up and becomes more distant. She tries to woo it back by making it a scrumptious meal, but when that fails and he prepares to move out, she will make an impulsive decision desperation that would change her entire life. Bao is probably the one nominated film this year that had been most seen, considering it played before Incredibles 2, which has grossed over $1 billion worldwide. I remember it causing some mixed reactions. There were those that liked the film, but others that were put off by it, calling it too allegorical. I'm not going to go into detail over that discussion, but as a Chinese-American the film did resonate with me. I will start by saying the film is called Bao because the Chinese word for the steamed buns is Bao-Zi (包子). I'm not entirely sure how much that confused people, but there's the explanation. And like most people have said, this film addresses the topic of empty-nest syndrome, or the feeling of loneliness that a parent gets one their child gets up and moves away. It had been a topic that had been addressed in several other films, most notably in Borge Ring's Oscar-nominated Oh My Darling. I'm not a parent so I play the role more with the character of the son rather than the mother, but that doesn't mean I can't sympathize with her. The film's director Domee Shi, who is Chinese-Canadian herself, based it off of her own mother's experiences. I think back to my own mother and I don't know what sort of thoughts she goes through. I don't think it really matters whether the events played out in Bao was real or in the mother character's head. The fact of the matter is the connection she forms with that bun baby is real, and therefore so is the mental anguish that she goes through in the film's climax. I thought the film progresses at a good pace, building up the relationship and tracing its eventual distancing in a montage sequence, using the shopping and tai-chi as ways to illustrate and contrast the changes in the relationship, all without dialogue. And I also appreciate a lot of the aspects of the Chinese culture that made it into the film, such as the portrayal of tai-chi and the habit of hanging words upside down (because the word for upside-down and arrival are homonyms.) They don't really change the film itself, but they are treats. And so is the opening scene of the making of the buns, which harkens back to the opening scene of Ang Lee's Oscar nominated Eat Drink Man Woman, which director Shi has said was an inspiration. The animation is typical high-quality Pixar CGI. The character design is a little bit strange, especially with the mother character's pear-shaped face and the son character's bun-shaped head. Nevertheless the animation still manages to convey the emotions very well, something that Pixar has done very well over the years and they seem to do even better as time goes on. The film is done without dialogue, which speaks to the impressiveness of the storyboarding, but it is accompanied by a background theme that has a strong Asian feel. I don't know about anybody else, but I thought Bao is a terrific film that addresses a serious topic that often goes unnoticed, and I'm personally glad that it secured a nomination.
Where Can I Watch It?
Pixar had posted the film in its entirety, although not in a format that allows it to be embedded. If you don't want to deal with that, it should also be available on the Incredibles 2 DVD/Blu-Ray, and Pixar Short Films Collection Vol. 3.
Late Afternoon
Emily is an elderly woman sitting in an easy chair in the late afternoon. An unfamiliar woman named Kate comes by and brings her some tea and biscuits. As Emily drinks the tea and eats the cookies, she is transported back to her childhood in the Irish seashores. She remembers the happy times playing on the beach. Emily eventually returns to the present where Kate is packing things up. As Emily looks at mementos she eventually travels back and forth between the past and the present. Why is she having so much difficulty remembering things, and just who is this mysterious woman Kate? Ireland has developed a thriving animation industry over the years. Brown Bag Films was a critically acclaimed studio that produced Oscar nominated films such as Give Up Yer Aul Sins and Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty. Irish animator Eoin Duffy made The Missing Scarf, which made it onto the Oscar shortlist, though it missed out on a nomination. More recently, Cartoon Saloon has become a major player especially in the Oscar races. They have made three films nominated for the Best Animated Feature category in The Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea, and The Breadwinner. Late Afternoon is their first entry into the Best Animated Short race. It was directed by Louise Bagnall, an animator that had worked on the latter two Oscar nominated features. Late Afternoon explores the difficult topic of dementia, the progressive and often permanent deterioration of memory and executive functioning. It is an insidious condition that saps an individual of their short and long term memories and eventually their ability to live. Research into the topic has shown that it could be caused by a multitude of different factors, but unfortunately the etiology of the most common form (Alzheimer's) is still tragically incomplete. The presentation of dementia is also different for every individual, but Late Afternoon makes an attempt to portray the illness in one individual. Generally short-term and more recent memory goes before long-term memories, so Emily is shown going in and out of her past. This transportation to the past is illustrated visually with Emily literally diving into her memories. It shows her reliving fragments of certain elements from her past and paints a more complete picture of the woman sitting in her chair at the start of the film. It works as a narrative basis. We are almost meant to assume the role of Emily, and as the film progresses it opens up other aspects of Emily's life. There are some things left unanswered such as why Kate is wrapping everything, but the open-ended nature leaves the film open to further interpretation. The film's narrative structure is complemented by its animation. There are essentially three different settings to the world of Late Afternoon in the present, the past, and the transportation between past and present. The present is more concrete and dominated by a golden palette to stimulate the light during late afternoon. The past is a lot more varied but a softer color pre-dominants. The past is also a lot less structured and many times objects are reduced to just basic shapes. And the transportation is the most fluid of all. Emily herself is often just a lined character as she floats through blobs. The overall effect is very effective and really does highlight the journey of Emily. The softness of the animation and the character design are also very pleasing and similar to the other films of Cartoon Saloon. The voice acting which includes Fionnula Flanagan as elderly Emily is also quite effective, and the accompanying music is very soothing and fitting to the overall tone of the film. Dementia is a difficult topic, but Late Afternoon manages to explore the topic in a way that is non-threatening, but also illustrates its potentially damaging nature.
Where Can I Watch It?
The film is online in its entirety for now.
One Small Step
Luna Chu is a young Chinese-American girl who falls in love with space flight. On the night of one of her birthdays she watches a space flight, then imagines riding in a spaceship with her father, a Chinese immigrant who works as a shoe repairman. As the years go by, Luna strives to make her dreams of becoming an astronaut a reality, taking classes in her local university. Meanwhile, her father continues to support her every step of the way. Yet as she struggles with the workload she grows more distant. What is she to do if her father ever goes away? One Small Step is the first film by Taiko Studios, an animation studio based in the US with support from China. Most of its crew members were animators with experience on films by Disney and Blue Sky and other major studios. Producer Shaofu Zhang and directors Andrew Chesworth and Bobby Pontillas had all worked on Oscar winners Big Hero 6 and Zootopia, while the latter two had been animators for the Oscar-winning Frozen. One Small Step therefore has a fully developed film even being a film from a brand new animation studio. The title is a clear reference to the famous line spoken by Neil Armstrong as he took his first steps on the moon: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." As expected, space exploration plays a major role in the film. It is the goal for our protagonist Luna, whose name is already a derivative on moon, and the goal that drives her. Of course, One Small Step also refers to the journey that Luna takes, which as she finds out is very ambitious and must be approached in a more directed fashion. And finally the title, specifically with the use of the word "step," also makes reference to Luna's unnamed shoemaker father, the other central character. Like Bao, One Small Step is another film about the experiences of an Asian immigrant in another culture, and the divide that may occur between generations. It is about the sacrifices that an older generation makes to support the dreams of the younger generation, and the way the younger generation may sometimes take these sacrifices for granted. It deals with some pretty complex themes, yet approaches them in a way that is gentle. Like Bao it utilizes a type of a sandwich structure that has an establishing scene and a concluding scene, but a lot of the meat comes from the montage in the middle. It uses the differences in the interaction between Luna and her father as a way to illustrate the changes in their relationship in addition to the external forces that surround Luna. It does it very effectively so that we do start caring for Luna and her travails and at the same time sympathizes with her father. The film does leave out the experiences of the father so that he is framed mostly in terms of his interactions with his daughter and that makes it more Luna's story rather than a story about two equal characters, but that is a minor nitpick. I wish we could find out more about the friends, but with a seven minute short film they just have to fall to the wayside. As I said in the shortlist post, the ending of the film does feel a little bit clichéd, but if you can get past that it really is a heart-warming story. The animation is very pleasing. It utilizes CGI, but at the same time it possesses a pleasing aesthetic. The character design is also very nice. The film is also told without dialogue, but the soundtrack is very pleasing. One Small Step is likely going to touch the heart of whoever watches it.
Where Can I Watch It?
One Small Step was a rare film that was made available from the start.
Where Can I Watch It?
The film was made available online not too long ago, but the video on Vimeo has been made private. You may keep checking on it to see if it does eventually get back online now that it's gotten a nomination.
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Welp, here are the five nominees. Amid Amidi of Cartoon Brew decried the shortlist for leaving out some of the more critically acclaimed short films (such as Boris Labbe's La Chute, a real mindfuck of a film,) but I'm personally pleased with these five nominees. They do represent a quite a bit of diversity, and there are Chinese influences present in a good three of them. Another presents some of my favorite voice actors in the business. All of them deal with some complicated themes. Were there some films on the shortlist that I wish would have made it instead? Sure, I thought Lost & Found was a technical marvel and also told a tragic tale of sacrifice, while Bird Karma was another great hand-drawn film that deals with the idea of karma, quite heavy for a short film. And Pepe le Morse addresses the difficult topic of grief while being darkly hilarious. But you know what? All of the nominees this year are worthy.
My Rankings (by quality)
Animal Behaviour > Weekends > Bao > Late Afternoon > One Small Step
My Rankings (by preference)
Animal Behaviour > One Small Step > Bao > Late Afternoon > Weekends
You're welcome
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