MOVIES

Oscar-Nominated Live-Action Shorts


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Published: Feb 16, 2010

KNOCK-OUT: Juanita Wilson's beautifully composed The Door is the likely winner of this years Oscar for Best Short Film.

[City Paper Grade: B+ ]

This year's Academy Award-nominated live-action short films take up serious subjects, and four of the five treat those subjects very seriously. Ireland's Juanita Wilson presents The Door, which begins with its end, as an entire community is forced to move out. As a father narrates their collective pain and loss, the film shows how he feels in dark, grim close-ups and haunting snowscapes. In Kavi, an Indian boy yearns to play cricket with kids his age, but must labor alongside his parents at a kiln instead. Writer-director Gregg Helvey keeps the camera low and tight, approximating the child's limited, anxious view. Australian Luke Doolan's Miracle Fish also takes a child's perspective, here a boy (the terrific Karl Beattie) on his 8th birthday: Bullied at school and impoverished, he wakes from a nap to find his world — the school hallways, the playground — utterly changed by some terrible violence. The New Tenants, by Joachim Back, features familiar faces: titular partners Jamie Harrold and David Rakoff, troubled by unhinged, jilted husband Vincent D'Onofrio and alarming heroin dealer Kevin Corrigan. Frames tilt and hover close to their faces during darkly comic exchanges, inviting you to anticipate a resolution that can't possibly come. The single straight-up comedy, Patrik Eklund's Instead of Abracadabra, follows the efforts of an aspiring magician to convince his parents and comely new neighbor that his ambition — especially his not-quite-worked-out sword-through-the-box trick — is worthy. Per the generic format, each film features a twist ending. The Door, sober and beautifully composed, seems the likely winner, but Doolan's movie is sharp, compassionate and provocative.

Read Cindy Fuchs' review of the Academy Award-nominated animated short films in Movie Shorts on p. 24.