Seen at: Lyric Cinema Cafe, Monday at 6:15 pm.
Saw these at the Lyric on a hectic day of moviegoing, after seeing Crazy Heart and a 2010 release I won't get around to writing up until after Oscars. It was nice to get back to "marathon" viewing mode. It had been a while. Moreover I saw these free, because I'd filled up another 10-slot punch card from the Lyric.
One thing I noticed about the live shorts this year: all five fell into the range of 17-22 minutes. If I were going to make a live short and wanted it to be Oscar-worthy, I'd let it fall in this range.
As such, the five nominees filled up the screening this year, with no "highly commended" additions.
The first, Kavi, is the story of a boy in India working in modern slave conditions. Very much a riff on Slumdog Millionaire (the character is even called a "dirty dog" in the opening minute). It was made as a thesis project of a student at USC, and sort of feels like it. Despite its noble premise, it is more of the set-up to a story, than a full story. Could be fleshed out into a full motion picture.
The New Tenants is a Danish film (in English) set in New York City about a gay couple that moves into an apartment building. Over the course of the film, a parade of Tarantino-type characters bursts into the apartment one-by-one, each falling to some laughable comic fate in turn, and the gay couple watches in disgust and then dances away at the end under the subway tracks---several recognizable actors, including Vincent D'Onofrio. Well made as a movie, but I really didn't get it.
Miracle Fish from Australia also includes a crazy character bursting into the scene with a gun (into an elementary school, where a child repulses the intruder with his goodness?). Never gets old! Well it does for me. It didn't get this one either. Well made technically but the story was simply a fragment that didn't have any impact on me.
The Door was probably the most powerful of the five. It's an Irish-funded film set in Ukraine following the Chernobyl incident. The title refers to a specific door that the father of a dying girl goes to retrieve, back to their old apartment. There was just enough of a full story here to make it work as narrative, and to support the heavy emotional theme, giving us a microdose of Aristotlean catharsis.
Instead of Abracadabra is a Swedish film (in Swedish with subtitles). It's the only comedy of the five, about a young unemployed goofy nerd who lives with his exasperated parents, and who refuses to find a real job but instead pursues a career as a performing magician. Along the way it becomes a bit of a romance.
In my book, the Award should go to either of the last two. The first three simply weren't enough of a story to win. I would vote for Instead of Abracadabra, since it had the most complete full story in its twenty minutes. The Door had a deeper emotional impact, however, so I can live with that one.
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