A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night: Vampirism in the Iranian New Wave

This is the best Persian language black and white photographed vampire film that you’ll ever see. That might seem a bit flippant, but I promise you that it is the exact opposite, it is high praise. I got the chance to see A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night last night at the Union Theatre at UW-Milwaukee. I cannot believe that I’ve not been there before now. The movie was free and the concessions were dirt cheap. The staff was really nice and the picture and sound were great. Getting to see a film like this which has only hit over a dozen screens nationwide was a real treat. It was a darling of last year’s Sundance from a first time female filmmaker, Ana Lily Amirpour. Iranian cinema has always been a bright spot in the history of world cinema. Abbas Kiarostami is a legend, Ashgar Farhadi gave a brillant effort with A Separation, and Shoreh Aghdashloo is about as solid a supporting actress that you’ll find whether it’s in Persian language films or not. While this film was actually made in America it is in the Persian language and features Iranian actors. It is set in the fictional Iranian ghost town of Bad City and focuses on the life of a lonely vampire, only known as The Girl. It’s a genre mashup featuring tropes from Westerns, but it is also a drug movie and a love story. It is very much in the tradition of New Wave European filmmaking, so if you like the works of Truffaut and Antonioni in particular you’ll be a fan of this, though this is more humorous than anything they’ve done.

I single out Michelangelo Antonioni is a reference because his films were as concerned with the built environment and it’s effect on his characters almost more than any other filmmaker. Amirpour matches him here. Even though hers is a fictional town and not even shot in the same country it is portraying she is able to get an ominous, humorous, and paradoxical look at modern Iranian life exactly in the same way Antonioni did in L’Ecclise and Red Dessert. The films stark black and white photography is stunning. It might seem like a gimmick these days to shoot in black and white but sometimes it is necessary to achieve the right mood. And this film is all about mood. It is more about the atmosphere and raw feeling than it is about narrative. Despite this there is a rather circular logic to the film from where it starts to how it ends up and it can be enjoyed on multiple levels.

The film is also feminist in nature, though not in the hit you over the head way. The title makes it seem like the girl would be in trouble, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth, she is in control. The female characters are not all empowered and strong but they are all fully formed and not just there to service the mail character’s story arcs. One of the actresses, Mozhan Marno, can be seen on House of Cards currently. It also features the driver from How I Met Your Mother and was even produced in part by Elijah Wood. So even though this is a small film there are still recognizable people in it and I hope that the other actors become more recognizable over time too. Though the real star here is the director. I have the feeling her next effort will get the backing of the right people to make her into a person to really watch time and time again. This film was impressive at every turn and referenced other films constantly but still felt unique and fresh. Think Quentin Tarantino but with far less dialogue.

Other things of note include some of the best lighting I’ve seen recently. Sure the black and white photography draws your eye to the lighting more than you would otherwise notice. It wasn’t just the way the light hit the set and characters, but rather the source of the light that was interesting. In most scenes the light came from an onscreen artificial source like a street lamp or a reading lamp or a disco ball. The night scenes were great. The music soundtrack was also very interesting and played with and against conventions to create tension or humor, you definitely were grooving in your seat.  Unique takes on vampires in film seem in vogue lately in independent cinema. After a glut of commercial vampire films that drew heavy criticism the indies seem to be setting this right. Only Lovers Left Alive was a vastly under-appreciated film last year and had a great creepy romance in its own right. In the next few weeks we’ll be getting What We Do in the Shadows a comedy about the real lives of vampires from different generations living in one house from New Zealand comedian Jemaine Clement. It’s a good time to be a fan of vampires in film.

Pre-Oscar Weekend Movie Viewing

So the Oscars are less than an hour away. I’m going to opt not to live blog them because doing the Golden Globes was a lot of work and these are even longer and I sort of just want to sit back and enjoy (and hopefully tick off all my correct predictions). So instead of making another in an endless stream of Oscar posts tonight I thought I’d just quickly recap the two movies I saw this weekend.

The Better Angels is the freshman effort from A.J. Edwards, a protege of the legend Terrence Malick, and his influence really shows. The visual cues, the camera motion, the editing, even the music was all vintage Malick. If you didn’t tell me I would’ve said Malick made this movie. I think the reviews for this film are a little harsh and are too focused on the connection to Malick. Stepping back from that this is really a nice, meditative, and lyrical take on the childhood of Abraham Lincoln. The movie also works even if you didn’t have the connection the mythical figure of Lincoln. The black and white photography is stark and smooth. Only Godfrey Reggio’s innovative black and white photography from The Visitorsoutdid it last year. The cast is great here, especially the women, Brit Marling and Diane Kruger. I’ll dip back into the comparisons with Malick and say how these performances so much evoke that of Jessica Chastain in The Tree of Life in how formative the mother figure is on the young boy and how angelic those mothers are. I rented this film for just $4.99 on iTunes and it just came out on that platform last week. If you have a fiver laying around or some spare change in the couch you should scrounge it up and give this movie a try. This one is definitely more aligned with my aesthetic tastes than mosts but any Malick fan, any fan of black and white cinematography, and any fan of Abraham Lincoln will find this film immensely enjoyable.

The second film I watched was a documentary that just got put on Netflix: The Overnighters. Unfortunately I missed this one at the Milwaukee Film Festival so I’m very glad it’s now readily available on Netflix which does a great job showing great documentaries you’d otherwise not see. This film somehow missed out on Oscar consideration in a year overcrowded with great documentaries. It’s about the oil boom in western North Dakota and the accompanying rush of less than savory men who come clamoring for jobs. It’s a heartbreaking depiction along the lines of The Grapes of Wrath and shows the devastating effects of a housing shortage and a very suspicious community that has no problem profiting from the oil boom but wants nothing to do with the men who would be willing to work for it. Past convictions keep them from getting jobs right away and with housing prices rivaling that of San Francisco and Manhattan there’s no place for them to go. So a pastor at a local church houses these men at his house of worship and even his own home much to the dismay of his congregation, town politicians, and his family. The movie would be an enlightening look at all of this and is very commendable but then there is a lightning bolt of a revelation late in the third act that makes you rethink all of what has been presented before. Any documentary film lover will love this as would anyone who is interested in the economic collapse of late last decade and the conditions that led to people descending upon Williston, ND and the surrounding areas seeking out six figure jobs. Highly recommended.

Nick’s Weekend Film Diary

The long holiday weekend (thanks Mssrs. Washington, Lincoln, et. al.) allowed for some excellent movie watching. I’ll go in reverse chronological order to give some brief (well brief for me) thoughts on them.

Having just seen this I can now finally understand the hubbub over it. Aside from the atrocious but obvious big money Fifty Shades of Grey, Kingsman: The Secret Service did very well for itself at the box office and I helped to contribute to that total. It was a perfectly self-aware ode to spy films of the late 60’s to early 80’s where gadgets, puns, girls, and absurd villains ruled the day. This movie was exactly what the most recent Bond films aren’t: fun. Don’t get me wrong I love what Daniel Craig and team are doing with the new Bond films, but they are deadly serious at this point and following in the footsteps of Jason Bourne. The movie was just fun to watch from start to finish and actively referenced Bond and Bourne and even Jack Bauer. This was made by people who grew up on the early Bond films and want some of that particular magic back and we totally get it. Colin Firth would’ve been an amazing 007 given his turn in this film. Sam Jackson is a fun villain, (he had a similar role in xXx (another ode to Bond). I highly recommend seeing this film when you’re not in a serious mood and want a crazy romp of a spy film. I hope they turn this into a series and Matthew Vaughn proved he wasn’t a one trick pony on the Hollywood scene after X-Men: First Class.  I do generally like more serious films at this stage, but I need to have fun from time to time too and there’s no better way to have fun if you love the spy genre.

This showed up on Netflix last Friday and I gobbled it up as soon as I could. It was certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and given the star power on screen I’m surprised this didn’t get a wider theatrical release. Viggo Mortensen plays a suave ’60s businessman with a secret. We don’t see enough of him on the big screen, he’s very picky with his roles so I was very pleased to see him here. Kirsten Dunst gives one of her better performances here, though she’s still third fiddle at best. What you’ve really signed up for is to see Oscar Isaac do his thing. He’s a rising star and is in both prestige pictures like Inside Llewyn Davis and A Most Violent Year and will soon be featured in potentially one of the biggest blockbusters ever; Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The story is reminiscent of The Talented Mr. Ripley in both characters and setting, which is fitting given it is from the same author. The director, Hossein Amini, gives a good freshman effort. He’s best known for writing the terrific Drive and shows here that he is more than capable of handling actors well and making a visually interesting film. If you’re asking yourself some night, “What do I watch on Netflix?”, the answer is The Two Faces of January.

This film and the next I was able to watch because a friend sent me copies of the blu-ray that have already come out in the UK. These films won’t be in theaters until February 27th. Luckily Maps to the Stars will also be on iTunes to rent on the same day. If you have an iTunes credit laying around I’d suggest using it on this in two weeks. If not it’ll still be cheaper to rent it than to go to the movies so it’s an easy choice. This film may be only for David Cronenberg fans, but if you’re not a fan of this subversive director then you’re doing something wrong. Cronenberg adds to his filmography of weirdness with Maps to the Stars. It’s an ensemble piece with interweaving pieces that satirizes southern California as a whole and Hollywood more specifically. It’s a film that is as self-aware is Kingsman but much more sardonic and grim. Despite this it has moments of absurdity that heighten it from just a satire to something that at least attempts to be more transcendent, though I’m not sure if it gets there. The reviews on this are a little more mixed but I’m a fan of whatever Cronenberg puts in front of me. He’s shown that Robbert Pattinson is much more than just Twilight with both this and his prior film, Cosmopolis. He also gets a very spooky performance out of Mia Wasikowska (who also was creepy in Stoker). But it’s Julianne Moore, who as usual, steals the show. If you have no other reason to watch this at least check it out for her.

The conflict in Ireland and Northern Ireland makes for great cinema. Whether it’s Bloody Sunday, Michael Collins, The Wind that Shakes the Barley, Five Minutes of Heaven, or Hunger, the backdrop and the themes it provides makes for great films. ’71 is an admirable addition to this tradition. Jack O’Connell is starting to make a career out of getting tortured on screen, as he has done in his two previous biggest films Starred Up and Unbroken. He basically plays a slightly rougher variation from his character in Unbroken (though this film was actually made first I believe). He’s a soldier who gets lost and left behind after his squad is out to assist in the arrest of an IRA supplier. The IRA and secret British forces are in a race to recover the lost soldier. The chase sequences are done incredibly well and the whole film gives off a claustrophobic vibe on the streets of early ’70s Belfast. The Troubles, as they were known, are a brutal part of British and Irish history and this film doesn’t pull any punches. While the middle of the film does trudge along rather slowly the beginning and end are superbly done. I guess this reflects reality rather well but doesn’t always offer the best cinematic experience in the middle minutes of the runtime. One of my favorite character actor of late, Sean Harris (24 Hour Party People, The Borgias, Prometheus, Southcliffe) gives another great performance here as the leader on the ground of the secret British Military Reaction Force (read up on their interesting story on Wikipedia) and you should really look for him in anything he does.

All of these films are well worth your time and you should give them a chance.

 

Guilermo Del Toro’s Crimson Peak Trailer

Guillermo Del Toro has been more famous lately for all the projects he takes on but doesn’t complete or promises to do than the actual films he makes. Dropping out of directing The Hobbit put a giant five year hole in his filmography. But he seems completely back with Crimson Peak. I loved Pacific Rim more than most and was happy to learn that will be moving forward with a sequel after huge overseas numbers, but it’s very good to see Del Toro working in horror again. His first three films, Cronos, Mimic, and The Devil’s Backbone were all solid and inventive horror genre pictures, but then after his Blade and Hellboy interpretations he gave us one of the best films of the 2000’s with Pan’s Labyrinth. That film is legendary by now and it cemented Del Toro as a critical darling and now hopefully he can repeat that feat with his newest film featuring breakout stars Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain, while also featuring Mia Wasikowska (who’s had some creepy horror performances in Stoker and Only Lovers Left Alive) and Charlie Hunnam who made this film instead of Fifty Shades of Grey (thank God). Feast your eyes on this amazing trailer.

Last Days in Vietnam on PBS

PBS offered us all a real treat this weekend by giving us Rory Kennedy’s Last Days in Vietnam for free over it’s app prior to it’s broadcast premiere on April 28th for it’s American Experience show. The films is nominated for Best Documentary at this years Oscars. Rory, daughter of Bobby, whose brother John had a large hand in escalating the American presence in Vietnam in the first place, gives us a look at the Fall of Saigon and the accompanying evacuation of American contractors, civil service members, military as well as South Vietnamese collaborators in the span of an extremely haphazard 24 hours on April 30th 1975. PBS will be airing this again almost 40 years to the day of the harrowing event. The Vietnam War is one of the saddest parts of American history, a debacle for the ages. This documentary does not focus on those mistakes which seem so obvious in hindsight, but instead shines a light on those who were not worried about legalities but right and wrong in the evacuation of innocents from Saigon as the army from the North barreled down on the city. American forces had largely left the country by this time after the Paris Peace Accords. The North saw this as an invitation to roll their tanks into Saigon and punish all those who had worked with the Americans. This is the story of the escape of the last Americans in the country as well as tens of thousands of South Vietnamese who knew their fate would likely be death if they stayed behind.

Their are dozens of iconic photos and videos that are shown in this documentary. Perhaps none more than the one above of a helicopter going to pick up a chief South Vietnamese military figure and the stream of humanity who wanted out. While the interviews of those involved in the events are enlightening and interesting, it is the archive footage that makes this documentary stand out. Seeing these amazing images with such a concise and driven documentary narrative is a rewarding experience. Kennedy also does a great job helping us understand the geography of the embassy layout and the efforts that were made to facilitate the evacuation. While not on the scale of Dunkirk in WWII it has the same sense of gravity and importance. I won’t get into a very in depth review of the film, but just talk about a couple of my favorite scenes.

There were many US Navy ships in the waters east of Saigon to protect the helicopter evacuation of the embassy. The helicopter option was the last choice after river based and airport evacuations became impossible. Once this became apparent there were many South Vietnamese Air Force pilots who took their helicopters and picked up their families and flew out into the Pacific not knowing if they would have enough fuel to reach a ship or if the ships would take them.  There was one ship who’s job was not to receive refugees or evacuees but to simply provide protection for the US Navy helicopters.  South Vietnamese pilots flew to this ship and the captain accepted them allowing them to land. As the first chopper landed on skids only they saw seven more waiting in line to touch down. There were no spots to keep these aircraft so the Navy personnel spun them around and shoved them off the side of the ship. Seeing so many South Vietnamese saved in this way was placed in very stark contrast to the dozens of helicopters literally being pushed into the ocean to make way for the next to land.

Then a Chinook helicopter came to land. This helicopter is absolutely huge and would have no chance of landing on this relatively small ship. So the pilot hovered over the ship as his family, six year and four year old boys, and his wife with six month old daughter, and others jumped out into the arms of welcoming US Navy personnel. The pilot then hovered over the water with the wheels dipping in and out as he took his cumbersome flight suit off and then tilted the chopper to the right as he dove out the door to the left. The helicopter broke up in incredibly dramatic fashion just 20 feet behind him as he swam to safety. It was an absolute miracle that all these people survived in their intense efforts to escape the oncoming onslaught of the North Vietnamese Army.

Others weren’t as lucky and had to cram into ships to attempt to get out. Hundreds of thousands attempted but failed to escape and were sent to re-education camps where the death toll is unknown. This film is a tribute to those who escaped and those who did not. Ultimately this would not make my top five documentaries of the year it was still a very good movie and one that I recommend everyone see when you get a chance. I mean it’s on PBS, so it’s free and everyone can get it.

Jupiter Ascending over Chicago

One of the quotes I’ve read about this movie that I think describes it best is from Wired and it says. “Jupiter Ascending is pretty stupid, but you should still go see it.” I wholeheartedly agree. It is pretty stupid; that or it tries to be too clever for it’s own good and in the process it becomes muddled to the point of absurdity. You should still go see it though, especially if you enjoy sci-fi visuals and new worlds to explore. The Wachowski’s are great with visuals, but outside The Matrix have been lacking in the story department. That said I’ve enjoyed all the films they’ve been involved with, including The Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions, V for Vendetta, Speed Racer, and Cloud Atlas. No matter what films they’ve made or will make since The Matrix they will be revolutionaries in Hollywood cinema. They brought the Hong Kong style wire-fu to mainstream western cinema and it’s never going away. There is plenty of that on display in Jupiter Ascending and it is used to incredible effect, it just will never have the punch that it did back in 1999 anymore. This is one of the busiest movies I’ve ever seen. There are just too many ideas, both good and bad, that nothing gets a chance to really shine through. Still there is an incredible lack of original space opera style science fiction, so pretty much any opportunity I get to see it I’ll be going.

By far my favorite part of the film happens in the first third of the two hour seven minute running time. The Wachowski’s are Chicago people and the city features prominently in one of the more beautifully alien invasion city destruction scenes out there. This is done considerably better than how Michael Bay lensed similar scenes in Transformers: The Dark of the Moon and can be largely credited to the work of cinematographer John Toll who’s meticulous and marvelous blue hour cinematography over the city. Channing Tatum handles the duties well of the brute and soldier in the story. I wont even go into his characters back story because it’s too convoluted and silly to even write about, suffice to say he’s a half wolf fallen angel. Mila Kunis plays a Princess Diaries type character and does equally fine. Those two are the centerpieces of the film, though Eddie Redmayne (who is as bad here as he is good in The Theory of Everything) and Sean Bean (who surprisingly does not die) are the main side characters. There are probably dozens of other side characters who start off having what would be an interesting sub plot only to be quickly forgotten about. Fellow director Terry Gilliam has a small role as a bureaucratic cog on a central planet of this universe that recalls his films Brazil and The Zero Theorem. The acting is never a problem here. They do well enough against their green screen backdrops and take the project seriously. It’s just the story is so stifling that things can never get going.

The best parts of the movie are the designs of the ships, the worlds that are created and visited, the inventive weaponry, and unique architecture. This is all spectacle that can trace it’s heritage back to that of D.W. Griffith through to George Lucas and the modern blockbuster. The baroque look of everything on alien worlds and the streamlined ships are a marvel to behold. The myriad of alien races recall the great practical effects work done in The Fifth Elementbut now recreated here in CGI. However what keeps this movie from entering the Pantheon of great space opera’s is the script being completely bogged down in complicated and frankly uninteresting galactic politics. Extraterrestrial politics can be handled well, like in the many adaptations of Dune, or they can hold a franchise back like in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. If you can accept that the story will be incomprehensible or that if you do comprehend it that you won’t be invested in it, but instead just want to appreciate what can be done with modern CGI and want to delve into the mind of creative world builders and designers then you will like this film. Ultimately, even as I tried to do that, I was stopped by the story that would at times pull me in only to leave me puzzled as to the narrative choices.

Despite knowing this all going in I still was anticipating this film and  enjoyed the experience as much as I could for what it was. Other films have tried this formula to mild success, like The Chronicles of Riddick, which seems to be the closest analog for Jupiter Ascending. The ideas while silly at times are at least original and I was craving some sci-fi. This was the first proper 2015 release I’ve seen because all the others seemed really bad and at least this was in a genre that I will always love. Next week comes Kingsmen: The Secret Service which has an equally silly premise but embraces that as a send up of the spy genre and recalling the late 70’s Bond films. So I’ll be looking forward to that as well. Still though if you’re looking for an early 2015 moviegoing experience and don’t want to wait until next week you can do a lot worse than Jupiter Ascending, just make sure your expectations are tempered going in and focus in on individual things to enjoy rather than the whole. This is definitely a film where individual elements can be extremely fun and inspire a sense of wonderment, but as a whole can seem convoluted and unduly complicated. That’s not to say this is a film to enjoy while laughing at, far from it, it’s just a technical spectacle the is candy for the eyes. And sometimes you just want to feed your eyeballs sugar.

Oscar Nominated Short Films

January is a horrible time for new movies. All of the recently released films (that aren’t 2014 awards season holdovers like American Sniper, Mr. Turner, A Most Violent Year, etc.) have been uniquely bad. Just look at Rotten Tomatoes lately, it’s brutal. So lucky for me we get a very awesome series provided every year at this time; the Oscar Nominated Short Films. Short Films are pretty much exclusively shown at film festivals, so if you don’t catch them there you won’t see them at all. So it’s very welcome that all of the Oscar nominated films in the short film categories get released as programs showcasing them all. They are broken down into Animated, Documentary, and Live Action. Unfortunately the documentary series is not shown everywhere, but hey two out of three ain’t so bad. The Live Action films together are long enough to support a full feature ticket price, the Animated ones are not given that only five films are nominated in each category. So the Animated program also gets a few extra films that are ‘Highly Commended’ that didn’t quiet make the cut to be nominated.  First I’ll talk about the Animated program and then move on to the Live Action.

Me and My Moulton

Me and My Moulton by Torill Kove, a Norwegian with two prior nominations in this category, is a story of three sisters told from the perspective of the middle sister and covers their lives from late spring through the heart of summer to early autumn in the mid 1960s. It’s told in a manner that resembles how a child would recount their summer when returning to school. The tangents are fun and provide plenty of laughs and were perfectly twee, but the crux of the story rests on their desire to have a bike like all the other children. The animation style is crisp and straightforward, it would make a good children’s book. I think this one has to be the frontrunner because of the medium length (14 minutes), concise story that still allows for subplots and many characters. It was just a real crowdpleaser and an excellent way to start off the program.

Disney’s Feast, however, was my favorite of the bunch. I don’t think it will win because I think the Academy voters like something a little outside the box and a Disney film is certainly not that. This is trademark Disney. It is very reminiscent of the beginning segment of Up and I absolutely loved that Pixar film. Feast is about a young man hen he rescues a stray puppy, named Winston and their life together. The camera position in the animation is from the knees down, so it is entirely what the dog would see. The dog progressively gets more and more decadent things to eat and is a real glutton. But then, as things happen, a girl comes into the man’s life and things of course change. This was only 6 minutes long and it’s so impressive to get a full story told like this, even if it was a little emotionally manipulative. The animation was of feature length quality and this film got the most laughs from the audience. This would be my pick to win, but I think it’ll be difficult to win over the voters.

The Bigger Picture from the UK offers the most unique animation styles of the bunch. It is painting and stop motion coupled with miniature props and what appears to be physical lighting instead of animated. From a pure animation standpoint this is by far the most innovative. The story is much more dour than all of the other presentations and was the only film to not garner any laughs. It’s about two brothers as they struggle with each other to care for their elderly mother as she needs to go into a home. While it’s a touching little story at 7 minutes long it never gets the chance to be the focus because of all the crazy animation. Honestly, it was the perfect film to put in the middle of the compilation to break things up a bit and give us a flourish in just pure visuals.

The Netherland’s A Single Life is only a scant two minutes long. That’s pretty amazing to think about. You never really consider the length of a feature length film other than to say it was a short movie or a long movie, but having a film be only two minutes really makes you contemplate storytelling and editing. It’s a fully realized story in just those two minutes where a young woman finds out that her turntable can control time and fast forward, rewind and jump around in her own life. The abrupt ending was rather hilarious. This film really solidified a strong theme running through all the short films: time. All of them are about the passage of time in one’s life, whether it be just a summer or a whole lifetime. I was really impressed by all of the selections having such a strong uniting theme running through them and it made the whole program more enjoyable.

The Dam Keeper

The Dam Keeper was the longest of the lot at 18 minutes and reminded me more of Studio Ghibli films from Japan. The geography of the town was beautifully laid out and the world was wonderfully realized. The dam that protected the town from a mysterious ‘darkness’ is also similar to the anime series Attack on Titan. The themes of bullying, loneliness, and friendship were at the forefront and this seems like an especially timely story given what kids must endure growing up these days if they are even slightly different from the societal norm. I also really enjoyed the anthropomorphized animals here and it reminded me of one of my favorite animated films, Disney’s Robin Hood from 1973, which had Robin Hood as a fox and Friar Tuck as a badger.

Bus Story

After the five main films were shown, a further four ‘highly commended’ films were shown. They were Sweet Cocoon, Footprints, Duet, and Bus Story. Out of those four Bus Story was the one that could’ve been a true contender if it were nominated. They all continued the theme of the passage of time and its effect on us. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole program and would highly, highly recommend seeing it if you have the chance.

Parvaneh

Parvaneh (or Pari for short) was an excellent start to the Live Action program. From filmmaker Talkhon Hamzavi this film is about a young Afghan immigrant to Switzerland and her struggles to support her family back home. She does not have a full ID yet as she is just an asylum seeker so she is unable to send money back through Western Union. She befriends who she believes to be a homeless youth to have her send the money for her only to find out she is actually from a wealthy family. Before they can get back to send the money the shop has closed and they must wait until tomorrow. Spoiler: They become great friends over night at a party. This was a wonderfully inspirational story about friendship and the fleeting meetings in life that can become so much more than that. I think such hope was a great way to start the program and I really loved this film. At first I thought it would be my favorite, but the Live Action category turned out to be extremely strong.

Butter Lamp

Next up was Butter Lamp and it takes place in Tibet from director Hu Wei. This was the shortest of the films at 15 minutes. It is shot entirely straight on through the viewpoint of a photographer who takes family photos in front of a variety of backdrops. Most of them are from other locations in China or Tibet, but some are out of place like a seaside backdrop. The families who are having their portraits taken are very poor and some may never have had their photo taken before at all. The little vignettes are poignant and touching getting to meet these families for a fleeting instance. It was comical and melancholy at the same time. The big reveal is when the photographers are finished and the backdrop is removed to reveal they were in front of the Himalayas the entire time and a gigantic highway bridge is being built. This film got the loudest amount of applause out of all and I can see why the crowd loved it. It had a lot to say about Tibet/Chinese relations without being overt about it; something that Chinese filmmakers know all too well how to do.

This was one of the saddest films I’ve ever seen, perhaps even rivaling what I consider the saddest film, Dancer in the Dark.  It has recognizable actors in Sally Hawkins (who was terrific in Blue Jasmine) and also features the voice of Jim Broadbent. It is about a old man who calls into a crisis center and the woman who takes that call. The film almost entirely takes place at the call center and we never see the man who calls in. The expressions of grief and concern that Hawkins is able to emote is one of the strongest performances of they year, female or otherwise. If this were a feature length film she would have a serious shot at winning Best Actress, I was that impressed.

For my money this should win. Aya was a 39 minute long film from Israel. Sarah Adler as Aya and Ulrich Thomsen as Mr. Overby weren’t actors I knew before seeing this film but I will be very keen to follow their careers after this. This film absolutely blew me away. It made me think of one of my favorite films of the year, Locke, since it took place mostly behind the wheel of car, but this time it has a woman who fakes being a driver to pick up business people from the airport and a man who is coming in to Israel to judge a music competition. This film really solidified a strong running theme in all the short films here; chance encounters and their impact on our lives. Just like the animated films focused on the passage of time the live action films had an equal laser focus on these fleeting moments and how important it is to treat every person we meet as a possibility of something great. I cannot praise this film enough. If it were a feature length film it would’ve been in my top 20 for the year, maybe even top 10. If you get a chance to see this movie take it. I loved this.

Boogaloo and Graham is about two young boys and their pet chickens in war torn Belfast in the 1970s.  I think films about the conflict in Northern Ireland are very interesting and I try to see them all. The upcoming ’71 looks to be another in that great sub-genre. Here though it is a comic take about a family, nothing sweeping about the conflict itself. The boys are hilarious in their honesty and their care for these chicks is really heartwarming.  It was great to have a more lighthearted film to end the program as things had been very serious most of the time. There were moments of danger as well and it gave the film a surprising weight. There wasn’t a single film here that I had quibbles with and the house was packed and was well receiving for this unique experience. If you get a chance to see any of the short film programs you really have to take it. All of these films come very highly recommended and you’ll be able to impress your friends at any Oscar party with knowledge of this obscure category.

Go to this website to find out more, including where to see these programs: http://shorts.tv/theoscarshorts/