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Blind Vaysha. Courtesy of the NFB. |
Canada goes for gold in this year’s Oscar race for Best
Animated Short. Two of the five nominees are Canuck cartoons and they’re easily
the most unique films of the bunch. Let’s build to the best, though, and save
the homegrown talent for last.
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Pearl. Courtesy Shorts HD |
This batch of nominees includes one of the category’s most
recent winners and, surprisingly, the film is the biggest disappointment of the
lot. After the five-star wonder of Feast,
Patrick Osborne returns with the similarly-styled Pearl (USA, 5 min.). This
handsomely animated music video about a father, his daughter, and their car
employs a similar conceit to the visual design of Feast but without as much success. Whereas Feast uses an Instagrammy composition that puts food at the centre
of every scene as an adorable puppy finds the way to his owner’s heart through
his stomach, Pearl observes the world
of this family through the frame of their windshield. Created for Google’s
Spotlight Stories Virtual Reality campaign, this folksy film never feels like
anything but a music video/commercial mashup. Why not just nominate A Balloon for Ben?
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Piper Courtesy Shorts HD |
There is no gimmick, however, and only simple storytelling
to drive the pair of CGI shorts among the nominees, Borrowed Time (dir. Andrew Coats and Lou Hamou-Lhadj; USA, 7
min.) and Piper (dir. Alan Barillaro; USA, 6 min.). Both films are also
tales of parents and children with the former being a little bit morbid and the
latter being a whole lot of cuteness. Borrowed
Time is a dark—and, unfortunately, funny—western about a sheriff who can’t
turn back the hands of time to reverse a terrible accident, while Piper is an affectionately sweet film
about a small sandpiper whose parent nudges it to fend for itself in the wild. Borrowed Time is enjoyable economical,
while Piper dazzles with its superior
computer animation. (One downside to CGI is that the quality of the work is
easier to compare than the vastly different aesthetics of the other nominees.) Piper, which animation fans will
remember seeing with Finding Dory last
summer, boasts impressive texture and lightness in the down and feathers of the
birds that populate the film. The softness of the birds only adds to their
charm and adorableness. This little bird is a fine contender to bring Pixar yet
another Oscar.
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Pear Cider and Cigarettes |
The darkest and edgiest of the nominees is Robert Valley’s Pear
Cider and Cigarettes (Canada/UK, 35 min.), a stunning work of animated
pulp fiction. The film offers a violent and harrowing first-person account of
addiction, misfortune, and unwavering friendship. An unseen narrator recounts
the life and hard times of his friend Techno, a wily cat who battles
alcoholism, drug addiction, and a lucrative spree of accidents/lawsuits that
fuel his demons. Rendered in sharp, graphic novel-like frames with dark brooding
palettes, which notably use Photoshop as their canvas, this animated non-fiction
film is a tragic testament to the power of friendship. Valley’s effort to
honour his friend is evident in every frame of Pear Cider and Cigarettes—and in the impressive DIY effort to produce
the film and distribute it. Mature audiences will undoubtedly put it high on
their ballots.
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Blind Vaysha Courtesy of the NFB |
One must also be in awe of the second Canuck contender—and,
admittedly, my favourite animated short heading into the race and personal vote
of these five nominees. Blind Vaysha (Canada, 8 min.) is
another outstanding NFB fable from master Theodore Ushev and it ranks among his
best. It’s easily up among his strongest work with Lipsett Diaries, anyways, which says a lot considering his hypnotic formal plays
like Gloria Victoria. This new fable
is simply stunning. Blind Vaysha displays
Ushev’s signature linocut aesthetic, which animates lines and forms in a mode
akin to engraved woodwork stampings, in top form as the mirror images of the
animation blend the old with the new. This timeless aesthetic complements Ushev’s adaptation of a story from Bulgarian
writer Georgi Gospodinov about a young girl born with a
peculiar affliction: she sees in different eras with one eye looking to the
past and one to the future. She sees not the present.
Blind
Vaysha looks at the world through a storybook lens to ask the audience—and
playfully so through a unique direct address—how one can live by looking
forward or to the past. It’s an especially relevant question in today’s
political climate and hopefully one that inspires moviegoers to look at these
films with the better of two eyes. And if not, Oscar voter, woe to you.
The Oscar-nominated
animated shorts open in select theatres including TIFF Bell Lightbox on Feb. 10
and ByTowne Cinema on Feb. 17.
Catch more on the Oscar short docs at POV and check back soon for the live action shorts!
Catch more on the Oscar short docs at POV and check back soon for the live action shorts!