In Oscar's short-film nominations, an animation technique for every taste
Old school and new school, color pencils and touchscreen styli, a wide range of formats and techniques are represented in the Oscar Nominated Short Films 2016: Animation program, and that's a good thing. The five nominated shorts, and the four additional "highly commended" titles that make up the theatrical package, use computer animation, hand-drawn animation, stop-motion animation, and in several cases, a mix of all three.
Old school and new school, color pencils and touchscreen styli, a wide range of formats and techniques are represented in the
Oscar Nominated Short Films 2016: Animation
program, and that's a good thing. The five nominated shorts, and the four additional "highly commended" titles that make up the theatrical package, use computer animation, hand-drawn animation, stop-motion animation, and in several cases, a mix of all three.
The stories aren't too shabby, either.
Among the standouts: Bear Story, from the Chilean animation studio Punkrobot. Director Gabriel Osorio's gorgeous tale of a sad old bear who constructs an elaborate mechanical diorama is a marvel of invention (watch the "making of" video on Punkrobot's site, www.punkrobot.cl). The story of a circus bear who longs to escape and rejoin his clan is a political parable, too, inspired by Osorio's family's travails during the Pinochet dictatorship, when thousands of people were abducted, imprisoned, killed. No wonder there's such a sad look in the bear's eyes.
Austin, Texas, animation legend Don Hertzfeldt's World of Tomorrow is the other gem here. It doesn't have the polished sheen of CGI, but its primitive stick-figure drawings belie an immensely sophisticated, forward-thinking view. Incorporating the tricky concepts of time travel, cloning, and human (and machine) consciousness, Hertzfeldt's toon follows its young heroine, Emily Prime, as she communes with her future clone on the "outernet," a neural network full of collective memories. In just 17 minutes of beautifully simple cartooning, Hertzfeldt travels the space-time continuum, getting a surer handle on things than Christopher Nolan did in his big-screen epics Inception and Interstellar.
Speaking of space, the Russian short We Can't Live Without Cosmos follows a pair of brotherly cosmonauts as they train for their expedition beyond Earth's gravitational pull.
Old traditions and new media collide in Sanjay's Super Team, about a father at his prayer altar, meditating and ohm-ing, and the son at his video console, playing superhero games. The Pixar short was shown in front of the fall release The Good Dinosaur. So, unlike its fellow Oscar nominees, it's actually been seen - by a lot of people.
Parental warning: Richard Williams' hand-drawn Prologue, also vying for the Oscar, is not for kids. The animation innovator behind Who Framed Roger Rabbit has long been working on a project about ancient warfare, and this short, full of drawings come to life, is a study in bloody combat, visceral, full of gore, and male nudity.
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Oscar Nominated Short Films 2016: Animation *** (Out of four stars)
Directed by Gabriel Osorio (Bear Story), Richard Williams (Prologue), Sanjay Patel (Sanjay's Super Team), Konstantin Bronzit (We Can't Live without Cosmos), and Don Hertzfeldt (World of Tomorrow), with four additional titles. Distributed by Shorts International.
Running time: 1 hour, 31 mins.
Parent's guide: No MPAA rating (violence, adult themes).
Playing at: Ritz Bourse.EndText