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2014 Animated Short Oscar Analysis

2014 was a pretty good year for animated shorts and the Academy’s solid choices reflected on that fact well. They mostly chose to nominate the best films released this year and they honored a wonderful flick. It’s a very eclectic list of different styles and approaches with indie movies taking up most of the slate in a wonderful turn of events.

My Ranking of the Nominees:

5. Me and My Moulton

This is a story about a girl which wishes for a bicycle from her parents, but gets something completely different. Torill Kove directed this short, the director behind the Oscar-winning ‘Danish Poet’, and it’s a similarly intimate, personal and endearing tale as that winner. I did appreciate the exploration of how children perceive their parents at a very young age, but otherwise the movie is standard fare, meant more to charm you than inspire you. The narration is repetitious, but the characters are colorful. In a very strong slate, it sadly gets the last spot.

4. The Bigger Picture

The Bigger Picture benefits from an incredible combination of hand-drawn and stop-motion techniques that really worked and made the short wildly inventive and artistic. But otherwise I was left a bit in the cold. The film is about two sons who are ambivalent about taking care of their aging mother. It’s a very touching tale, but the movie itself was far from warm, which was my biggest issue with it. But because of its artistic animation and a very effective ending, the film evaded being last in my ranking.

3. A Single Life

A woman plays a mysterious vinyl record single and suddenly knows how to travel through her own life in this highly existentialist movie that invites audiences to think about their own mortality and the passage of time in a very quick, but effective way. This is an extremely short movie, clocking in at just three minutes. Thus, it felt a bit slight and fleeting. Still, this Dutch short should be commended for actually delivering an emotional and thematic punch in spite of that short length, so it gets this high third placement.

2. The Dam Keeper

Now we come to the really great stuff. The Dam Keeper is this incredibly artistic and touching movie about a pig who gets bullied at school, but is actually a protector of the entire town. Everything here clicked in its place. The characters of the fox and the pig are so memorable and endearing while the subject of bullying is given a proper, emotionally driven treatment. The highlights are its gorgeous animation, superb score and absolutely phenomenal world building. Add to that a unique melancholic feel and you’ve got an instant classic.

1. Feast

Choosing between these two masterpieces was immensely difficult, but eventually my love for dogs prevailed, so Feast ended up on top. This film is all about the dog-human relationship and how it’s built through food itself. It felt very truthful in that depiction. The mixing of computer and traditional animation lent a classic yet modern feel to the movie. The ending is deeply moving and this is one of those shorts that are wonderful from start to finish. It’s simple, but brilliantly executed all-around, so it deserved its Oscar this year.

Films That Should Have Been Nominated:

Coda – After a drunk man loses his life, his soul leaves his body. Lost and confused, the soul wanders around the entire city, unaware that Death is following him. This movie had nothing new to say in terms of its existentialist themes, but it was so well executed in score, animation and atmosphere, so it easily could have been nominated this year.

Footprints – Footprints is a pretty good Bill Plympton-directed short that is obvious, but effective in its messaging. It’s also artistically inclined and striking in imagery. While underdeveloped in characters and themes, it was so well made that it ended up being one of the best Plympton projects so far.

Duet – Glen Keane’s Duet mostly managed to transcend its narrative shortcomings with gorgeous animation, a lovely score and a very classical feel to it. The plot is beyond thin and the movie never fully recovered from it, but Duet is so dazzling to watch and so elegant that it still ended up being effective.