Best Live Action Short Film Nominees for the 95th Academy Awards (2023, listed in order of appearance in the shorts package)
This blog, since 2013, has been the site of my write-ups to the Oscar-nominated short film packages – a personal tradition for myself and for this blog. This omnibus write-up goes with my thanks to the Regency South Coast Village in Santa Ana, California for providing all three Oscar-nominated short film packages. Without further ado, here are the nominees for the Best Live Action Short Film at this year’s Oscars. The write-up for the Documentary Short nominees is complete; expect the write-ups for Animated Short to appear either Friday or Saturday. Films predominantly in a language other than English are listed with their nation(s) of origin.
Adapted from Morten Dürr and Lars Horneman’s graphic novel of the same name, Aners Walter and Pipaluk K. Jørgensen’s Ivalu takes place in Greenland among the indigenous people there. Younger sister Pipaluk (Mila Heilmann Kreutzmann) awakens one morning to find older sister Ivalu (Nivi Larsen) missing. The film implies that she has run away from home before, and their father (Angunnguaw Larsen) suspects she will eventually return home. He is strangely unperturbed about this development, and Pipaluk expresses her grief over her sister’s disappearance in the form of epistolary narration. By film’s end there is no ambiguity about Ivalu’s fate; the only ambiguity surrounding the narrative is the fact Pipaluk is too young to understand the trauma that her sister must have felt. References to the indigenous spirituality and a too-obvious symbol in a raven also define Walter and Jørgensen’s approach to the story.
Despite some stunning landscapes of the Greenlandic wilderness (especially those glaciers and their crevasses) and some creative uses of storytelling juxtaposing shots of those locations, Ivalu loses its way in its second half. Sticking to one tone for the entirety of its sixteen-minute runtime, this is a morose, distressing film that never permits any moment of levity or any tonal modulation. In addition, Pipaluk’s narration/letter to her sister lacks any thematic interest – fixating entirely on what she, personally, has lost rather than reflecting on Ivalu’s past or present situation. When the second half reveal appears, the continuation of this narrative approach feels near-exploitative – saved only due to Pipaluk’s age and lack of understanding. The absence of character interactions undermines any emotional staying power this film wishes to have and Rasmus Walter-Hansen’s ambient score does nothing but deepen the misery onscreen. Regrettably, films about children in horrific situations remain a staple for the Short Film and Animation Branch of the Academy (with the exception of Best Picture in which the entire Academy decides upon the nominees, the branches are responsible for nominations in their own categories).
Nattrikken (Night Ride) (2020, Norway)
Eirik Tveiten’s Nattrikken has all the elements of what can be an effective short film. Yet the film wastes its interesting premise on concentrating too much on its most loathsome character in a dangerous moment. On a late night in presumably December, Ebba (Sigrid Kandal Husjord), a lady with dwarfism, is standing outside in the snow awaiting a tram’s arrival. The tram’s conductor (Øyvind Uhlving) exits to use the restroom, only to have Ebba enter the tram doors against the conductor’s instructions. Fooling around with the controls, Ebba decides to drive the tram onwards to avoid repercussions from the livid conductor. After overshooting the first stop and ungracefully applying the brakes, Ebba allows several passengers clamber onboard, including a transgender woman named Ariel (Ola Hoemsnes Sandum) and an uncouth young man named Allan (Axel Barø Aasen). As the tram starts winding its way into the city, Ariel and Allan start flirting with each other, but the latter cannot contain his fury when he finds out the former is transgender.
For a film that lists Husjord as the first-billed actor and immediately indicates its sympathies towards Sandum’s, its initial framing is simply a bait and switch. Nattrikken’s second half becomes a masterclass of assholery from Aasen’s Allan, who has the most significant character developments and lines of dialogue in the entire piece. Allan’s transphobia takes center stage for longer than is comfortable, with believably zero pushback from the tram’s other passengers – all of whom looking like they would rather arrive at their destination as soon as possible – that evening. As the winner of Best Narrative Short at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival, Nattrikken’s conclusion is inappropriately too clean-cut. After a harrowing encounter with Allan, one imagines that Ariel needs to express her anger and fear after Ebba belatedly comes to her defense. Ariel becomes nothing more than a narrative device to further detail Allan’s transphobia – an indefensible decision despite the initial set-up and professional production value behind this work.
Premiering at last year’s Cannes Film Festival and distributed by Disney, Alice Rohrwacher’s Le pupille (“The Pupils”) takes place at Yuletide sometime during World War II. Somewhere in Fascist Italy, we encounter Serafina (Melissa Falasconi), one of several young girls – mostly orphans, although one leaves to see her parents for the holidays – at a Catholic boarding school. The nuns – led by Madre Superiora Fioralba (Alba Rohrwacher) – who oversee the school are preparing for the convent’s annual Nativity scene, in which the locals come by around midnight to offer prayers and donations. Anyone familiar with Ludwig Bemelmans’ Madeline will be immediately familiar with the relationships between the girls and the nuns (although, as I research this, I am shocked to learn that Ms. Clavel from the Madeline series actually wasn’t a nun). In the hours leading up to Christmas, an incident involving the girls listening to an “inappropriate” radio broadcast results in a mass punishment for the girls. Later that evening and into the next morning, a gift of an enormous, rationing-unfriendly custard cake will test the tensions between the nuns and their pupils.
Shot on 16mm film and boasting a grainy texture to its color palette that transports the audience, Le pupille – a film that interestingly has Alfonso Cuarón (2004’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, 2018’s Roma) as a producer – captures wonderfully the austerity of the boarding school, the loneliness of winter, and the poverty of wartime Italy. I just wish that, along with the graininess, it was a little less gray in the scenes that beg for vibrant colors. Once the film approaches the joyous scene with the radio, it turns into a tale of youthful rebelliousness amid restricting customs. As if taking cues from silent films, certain moments are sped up for comedic event and several fourth wall-breaking, Greek chorus-like scenes involving the children help maintain an air of cinematic levity. Even though Le pupille makes only the scantest note of the inescapable political background that it is set in, this is a delightful watch – mostly thanks to the comedic timing of its ensemble cast.
La Valise rouge (The Red Suitcase) (2022, Luxembourg)
Set entirely at the Luxembourg Airport, Cyrus Neshvad’s The Red Suitcase is a slow-burn thriller that allows its messaging to stem from its confident, controlled filmmaking. Sixteen-year-old Ariane (Nawelle Evad) arrives in Luxembourg after a long journey from Iran, but she is in no rush to exit. Her red suitcase is the last one on the luggage carousels for the night and she, reluctantly, picks it up only after the carousel stops. She slowly trudges towards customs – the two customs officers on duty only speak French and English, and Ariane can only speak Farsi. We see that Ariane is especially frightened not of the customs officers, but the older man (Sarkaw Gorany) with a bouquet of flowers awaiting for her in the arrivals terminal. Ducking into the restroom after the customs officer awkwardly complete their luggage inspection, she then makes a fateful decision to remove her hijab, and proceeds with her life at stake.
Neshvad’s acute sense of dramatic timing – most notably, the perfect placement of two instances in which Ariane looks at her father’s WhatsApp messages on her phone – allows the audience to piece together her feelings and her motivations with nary a line of dialogue. Nawelle Ewad also deserves credit for conveying Ariane’s tentativeness and a fear that threatens to burst at any given moment. Much of the suspense is occurring in Ariane’s head (the film never completely explains how dangerous her situation is, but there are implications that the film’s central scenario was set in motion without her full consent), and cinematographer Nikos Welter and editors Yves Dorme and Felix Sorger allow their scenes to breathe in the tension. Welter and Neshvad’s use of blocking and obscuring Ariane’s face in certain moments elevate the tension, as the audience intuits her desires not to be found. The Red Suitcase comes at a fortuitous time, with the ongoing (but seemingly losing momentum after its zenith late last year) Mahsa Amini protests a contemporaneous development to the film’s message. Its criticism of Iranian patriarchal practices is unmistakable. But most importantly, Neshvad crafts an effective film first, and its message flows from Ewad’s performance and his filmmaking – not the other way around. The Red Suitcase is all the more terrifying, respectful, and impactful for that decision.
2022 seems to have been a banner year for Ireland’s signature gallows humor. Tom Berkeley and Ross White’s An Irish Goodbye does nothing but add to that tradition. Following their mother’s death, elder brother Turlough (Seamus O’Hara) and younger brother Lorcan (James Martin; whose character has Down Syndrome) return, with their mother’s ashes, to her farm. Now living in England, Turlough is looking to sell the farm – against the wishes of Lorcan, placing additional strain on an already-fractured relationship. Before that, Father O’Shea (Paddy Jenkins) informs Turlough that his mother left behind a bucket list, but Turlough has no interest in it but. Eager to sell the farm, Turlough is shocked to find Lorcan practicing tai chi with their mother’s urn. Explaining that he is only fulfilling the first of one hundred points on their mother’s bucket list, Lorcan refuses to leave the farm until both brothers complete the list. Reluctantly, Turlough agrees.
The winner for the BAFTA for Best British Short Film, An Irish Goodbye (an Irish/British co-production) is an unabashed heartstring-tugger amid its frequent cursing (never play drinking games with Irish films regarding how many times someone utters “feck” or a variation of it), extremely dark (but never quite crass) humor, brotherly infighting. At its core, this is an aspirational film of brotherhood and a dutiful movie that allows both brothers to grieve in their own ways. Written specifically with James Martin in mind, the screenplay by Berkeley and White establishes both brothers’ characterizations early and often – making it especially difficult to imagine other actors in either role (especially that of Lorcan). Bizarrely, unlike the other Irish film nominated at this year’s Academy Awards, it is An Irish Goodbye and its cinematographer, Narayan Van Maele, that does a better job at capturing the colors of the overcast greenery and sundown reds of this corner of rural Ireland. Admittedly, An Irish Goodbye’s resolution is trite, good intentions be damned. Yet after two beautiful performances from Martin and O’Hara, the film earns enough goodwill to deserve its storybook ending.
^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).
From previous years: 85th Academy Awards (2013), 87th (2015), 88th (2016), 89th (2017), 90th (2018), 91st (2019), 92nd (2020), 93rd (2021), and 94th (2022).
For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.
