Week in Film #5: 1/25/16-1/31/16

Week in Film #5: 1/25/16-1/31/16

Film of the Week: 2016 Oscar Nominated Short Films
 
   Documentary: 
       Overall this year features a strong group of nominees, three of which are very good. The least effective of the group is "Claude Lanzmann: Specters of Shoah", which despite this will likely win due to it's subject matter. If anything it made me curious to actually see Shoah. The other lesser effort is Body Team 12, which is good enough but suffers from a lack of material and being too short to hold ground with the rest of the nominees. Tied for first place are Last Day of Freedom, an inventive use of animation that makes this the most unique of the bunch, Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness, which inspires much anger towards a broken society and raises awareness of troubles that affect other areas of the world, and Chau, Beyond the Lines, which is an inspiring and uplifting short about a subject I previously knew nothing About. If I were to pick one, I would choose Chau, for it's ability to make me smile despite it's sometimes painful subject matter and it's optimistic approach and likable main character.

   Animated: 
       Aside from one standout, the lineup of animated shorts this year is sort of just fine. The animation itself throughout is strong and inventive, but most of the stories are lacking, and come across as just standard fare. While Sanjay's Super Team should be commended for taking on the topic of a non-western religion, it is pretty much a uniform pixar entry, with nothing very new or impressive to add. Bear Story is, I think, a metaphor for the Holocaust, and has the emotional pull that you'd expect. Or at least attempts the emotional pull, I myself wasn't particularly affected. We Can't Live Without Cosmos is at times funny, and the animation is well designed, but ultimately like most of the nominees simply couldn't grab me in the way it wanted to. Possibly the biggest achievement in sheer animation is Prologue, which features beautiful hand drawn illustrations of battle and carnage. Far and away the best of these is World of Tomorrow, which is simplistic but wonderful in it's animation and has the humor and surprising emotion to pull of it's odd style. This should win, but I have a feeling it will lose to one of the more traditional entries.

   Live Action: 
       This is quite the grim set of shorts this year. Aside from Ave Maria, these range from melancholic to down right morbid. Ave Maria is the lightest of the nominees, as I've already stated, and provides a nice breath from all the doom and gloom, or it would have if I hadn't seen it before the others. It's funny and enjoyable. The second lightest in tone is Stutterer, which only really gets that merit based on the happy ending, the more eased topic compared to the others. None the less it is effective and well crafted. Everything Will Be Okay is a pretty heartbreaking story of loss and love for a child, and one that wounds in an emotional way. Shok is probably the most pessimistic and emotionally brutal one, and if you are able to withstand the painful feelings it is rewarding. Although I do feel like I see this film in some form every year I do this. Lastly and in my opinion the best is Day One, which is the most shocking, and also the most hopeful of the three truly depressing shorts. It balances the emotions well and is the most even and affective of the category.

The Rest: 

The Earrings of Madame de...

   Year: 1953

   Director: Max Ophuls

       It's odd how sometimes the smallest things in life can carry so much meaning to us. That can often be a source of misplaced affection and eventual misfortune, as Madame de... learns. The film displays the upper class pristine life of a woman so incredibly proper and ornamental that at first I mistook it for satire. After a while though I came to realize that the movie was being very serious, and that is also where I was able to connect to it on a human level. It takes considerable skill to feel touched by the laughably ornate and seemly romantic entrapments of the most decadently wealthy and materialistic people I've ever seen. But the skill and craft is so good that it draws you into the feelings of these people with incredible ease and confidence. The camera work is on another level. The dancing scenes are like magic in their mobility and effortlessly elegant movement, the camera simply gliding and floating with precision and a looseness that makes you forget that there even is a camera. Masterful filmmaking here.

   Rating: A-

Blackboard Jungle
   Year: 1955
   Director: Richard Brooks

       I thought my school had bad kids, but at least none of them attempted to rape a teacher, as far as I know. As far as good teacher vs. troublesome class films go this is pretty good, with excellent naturalistic performances, especially from Glenn Ford and Sidney Poitier. Some have called it dated, but I found it pretty relevant in aspects to my high school experience. Clearly daring for it's time, which it should definitely be praised for.

   Rating: B-

The Red Shoes
   Year: 1948
   Director: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

       Technicolor never looked to awe-inspiringly gorgeous as it does in the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. The color pallet is truly beautiful and is visually unlike anything. The Red Shoes sequence in particular is astounding in it's vision and beauty, with technological brilliance and cinematic magic that is simply amazing. It is also as good a portrayal of artistic obsession and drive as I've ever seen. The cast throughout is on top form, and the movie is rightly deemed a masterpiece.

   Rating: A-

Black Moon
   Year: 1975
   Director: Louis Malle

       Surrealism and strange happenings are some of my favorite things that can happen in the movies. However, this is when and if they work. Unfortunately, for the most part, this is the case in Black Moon. Everything feels repetitive and honestly pointless, taking interesting little moments that would work well tucked into another film, instead of making the entire film out of those moments. The cover for the criterion edition of the film evokes rorschach tests, implying that the film is open for interpretation, and whatever you see in it is what the film means to you. For me, I saw something that resembled a director throwing bits together to try and create the semblance of meaning, but falling short and producing something of a mess.

   Rating: D