Catching up on the Oscar-nominated shorts from last year brought me to watch this film which is on Vimeo (I assume unauthorized). It is a surprising film to find in the pack for the Academy Award – I have not yet seen all of those nominated, but for sure this is by far the weakest I have seen from the pack. The plot sees a young boy watching his superhero cartoons while his father does his morning prayers. Forced to join in, the boy retreats into a fictional world where the gods are superheroes fighting to protect him. The name of the character is the same as the director/writer, and the end credits suggest it is based on real personal experience.
This is the bit that surprised me the most, because if the film is so personal, why does it have almost no heart. Technically it is all well and good, with typically impressive animation from Pixar, but there is nothing really beyond this and the movement. The narrative is very simple and it delivers its idea but doesn't draw us into the characters or make us feel for them. Without comparing it to other films, and looking at it on its own merits this is true, but to put it alongside World of Tomorrow or Bear Story only highlights this weakness further. We don't make a connection with the boy or his father in the film, nor is there a real sense of danger or wonder in the action section – so when we come together in shared understanding at the end, it doesn't have any impact other than being very functional along the same lines.
The animation is slick and professional of course, but otherwise there is really very little to the content of the short and it left me cold. The only reason it even stuck in my mind was that I kept pondering how it had gotten into the final pack of shorts up for an Oscar.
This is the bit that surprised me the most, because if the film is so personal, why does it have almost no heart. Technically it is all well and good, with typically impressive animation from Pixar, but there is nothing really beyond this and the movement. The narrative is very simple and it delivers its idea but doesn't draw us into the characters or make us feel for them. Without comparing it to other films, and looking at it on its own merits this is true, but to put it alongside World of Tomorrow or Bear Story only highlights this weakness further. We don't make a connection with the boy or his father in the film, nor is there a real sense of danger or wonder in the action section – so when we come together in shared understanding at the end, it doesn't have any impact other than being very functional along the same lines.
The animation is slick and professional of course, but otherwise there is really very little to the content of the short and it left me cold. The only reason it even stuck in my mind was that I kept pondering how it had gotten into the final pack of shorts up for an Oscar.