"The After" begins with Dayo, some sort of besuited businessman type, having a pleasant morning with his young daughter and beautiful wife. The daughter is then brutally stabbed by a random maniac and tossed over a bridge, the wife shortly crawling after her. This is when I was reminded I was watching an Oscar-nominated live action short film. The rest of "The After" takes place a year later, with Dayo now working as a ride-share driver and still thoroughly trapped in his grief. That is when an unexpected act of kindness from a random person gives him the first moment of catharsis he's had since the death of his family.
Yes, the shorts branch of the Academy remains addicted to melodramatic misery porn about dead kids. "The After" is especially ham-fisted about its opening tragedy. The film takes just enough time to establish what our protagonist has to lose before taking it away as abruptly as possible. Naturally, for maximum shock factor, our hero has to watch his wife and kid die violently and randomly. A car crash or medical emergency wouldn't be dramatic enough. It has to be a motorcycle helmet clad slasher. That image is so improbable and sprung on us so randomly, that "The After" seems just as likely to cause laughter as gasps. I mean, it wouldn't be funny if it was a mass shooter. But this is a British film and they actually have gun control in that country, so the sacrificial lambs must die at the hands of a horror movie villain popping up suddenly in this glurge-y drama. It's difficult to take any of this seriously, when it's so transparently manipulative. How are we supposed to care about this guy's wife and kid when they exist solely to give him a tragedy to overcome?
"The After" doesn't stop ladling it on after that. The flash-forward shows Dayo as completely broken, seemingly spending all his free time sitting in his car, pinning and crying over his dead family. Once another little girl enters his car, who just so happens to look very similar to his dead daughter, you can guess where this is headed. The only thing elevating "The After" above its status as tear-jerking sludge is David Oyelowo's lead performance. He manages to bring a degree of humanistic vulnerability to his character, especially in the climatic moment, that is actually somewhat touching. You have to be made of stone not to be a little moved by a grown man collapsing into tears from an innocent gesture. Otherwise, "The After" is the kind of heavy-handed, tragedy-laden, faux-inspirational nonsense you'd expect to see trending on your aunt's Facebook page. [5/10]
We've got two nominated shorts in a row beginning with a minor dying this year. “Invincible” starts with fourteen-year-old Marc driving a car into a lake. We then flash back to show the last 48 hours of his life. Marc is a bright but troubled young man who is back in a juvenile detention facility after a weekend with his parents. He assures his little sister that she'll see him again, because he can survive anything. Back at juvie, his moderating officer warns him that, if he escapes one more time, the consequences will be more severe. Marc tries to behave himself but his hunger for freedom can only be restrained for so long.
“Invincible” is based on a true story, of what happened to the director's friend when he was young. This set up certainly gives the Quebecoise short film more gravitas than the glurge-y melodrama of “The After.” It helps that the film approaches its subject in an understated manner. Marc, as calmly played by Léokim Beaumier-Lépine, clearly has more going inside than it appears. He's clever enough to turn on the sprinklers when left in a sweltering prison cell. He's creative enough to express his feelings through a thoughtful poem. Even if he's too stoic to read it in front of the class. When the boy has a chance to glee, when a guard leaves a gate open, we see him consider it. Yet he holds himself back, trying to behave under the rules his role has assigned him.
As an ode to someone too free to ever exist within the confines of society, “Invincible” could have been a little more fleshed out. This is a short that feels like a prototype for a feature film. Still, the discussion of existential themes – as displayed by Marc's friend, who claims they can imprison his body but not his mind – suggests there's more than just that trite idea going on here. It's well photographed, with the cramped, Academy ratio cinematography emphasizing the character's confinement. I wish the last third wasn't so rushed but this one did achieve some of the emotions it clearly sets out to create. [7/10]
Danish short “Knight of Fortune” also revolves around death, though at least it's not of a child. Karl travels to the morgue to say good-bye to his recently deceased wife. He can't bring himself to look at her body, instead occupying his time by fixing a broken lamp and sitting in the bathroom. That's where he meets Torben, another widower also there to see his wife's body. As they stand over the corpse, Torben begins to read from a long list of apologies. That's when the woman's family enters the room, none of them seemingly recognizes Torben. Karl is left confused by the entire scenario but quickly learns what is going on. In his own way, this eccentric stranger helps him confront his own grief.
“Knight of Fortune” presents a side of grief that isn't often acknowledge: Sometimes, you'd rather do anything besides look the death of someone you love in the face. Karl stopping to fix a sparking lamp before opening his wife's casket is a good sign of the kind of guy he is. After he's kept from crying in the bathroom by a weird stranger, I thought “Knight of Fortune” would be a dryly sardonic comedy about a man being repeatedly interrupted on his way to grieving for his wife. Instead, the film takes a much more reflective path. The true nature of Torbin's ritual is easy to guess but still plays out in a touching manner. We all have to say good-bye to the people we love. If you don't grapple with that pain, you'll become trapped by it. Sometimes, you need a helping hand to get out of that cycle.
“Knight of Fortune” is the gentlest of comedies though, about an unlikely friendship blooming in an even more unlikely place. Leif Andrée as Karl carries the right kind of world-weariness on his face, as an old man having trouble processing his pain. Jens Jørn Spottag has the right off-beat energy as Torben, to leave you a little uncertain of the guy at first before realizing that he actually means well. The awkwardness between them presents a bit of dry comedy but, ultimately, this is a very sweet little film about accepting the inevitable and finding a way to carry on. [7/10]
“Red, White and Blue” focuses in on Rachel, a waitress and mother of two in need of an abortion as quickly as possible. She lives in Arkansas, where the surgery has been de-facto outlawed, and must drive all the way into Illinois, even for a chance that she might be able to have the necessary procedure. She pinches penny to save up enough funds for the trip. Leaving her son at a friend's and, with her ten year old daughter Maddy in tow, the two do what they can to make this dire event into a fun road trip. Yet not everything is as it appears.
“Red, White and Blue” is, ostensibly, filmmaking as activism. This is a movie meant to draw attention to how fucking shitty abortion laws are in America right now. First, Rachel must save money anywhere she can. The visual cliché of an adult raiding her child's piggy bank is literally employed here. Even then, Rachel can only afford the appointment after a generous customer leaves her a big tip. This is still not enough, as the waiting list is extremely long upon Rachel arriving at the clinic. Despite the incredible graveness of this situation, “Red, White and Blue” is still strangely framed as light-hearted. The woman and her daughter sing along to a pop song on the radio, eat lots of junk food, and even stop at a carnival. Contrasting such an upsetting situation with a fast-paced montage is extremely weird.
At this point, I was just confused by “Red, White and Blue's” approach. Even more frustrating, this seems to be one of those issues movie with nothing more on its mind than to showing us how bad things are. Writer/director Nazrin Choudhury does not get into how this country has gotten to this point, or the various factors of why it has happened. No further commentary is provided beyond these things simply being this way and how bad that is. At rough as this is, it's all a prologue for a truly offensive plot point. The movie reduces a horrible, all-too-common event to nothing but a cheap twist ending. If that wasn't bad enough, the movie piles on unnecessary details that strike me an exploitative exercise in bad taste. What is the purpose of films like this, that pass off a cheapening of real world horrors as activism? I can't answer that question. However, if the history of the Academy's choices in this category is any indication, “Red, White and Blue's” utterly surface level treatment of a controversary issue and its gormless shock tactics will probably be rewarded with an Oscar. [4/10]
The Academy ignored Wes Anderson's latest feature length masterpiece, “Asteroid City,” this year. However, they did notice one of the shorter Roald Dahl adaptations he made that debuted on Netflix not long afterwards. Like Dahl's story, “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” involves the titular gambler who stumbles upon a pamphlet written by a doctor, who met a man who claimed he could see with his eye closed. Sugar studies and practices the techniques for three whole years, until he has mastered them. He immediately uses the newly acquired skill to cheat at cards and earn piles of money at the casino. Yet the life-long gambler soon discovers that his priorities have changed with the acquisition of this new talent.
Despite only being forty minutes long, “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” sees Wes Anderson indulging in all of the trademarks that define his films. The movie contains a nesting doll style narrative, stories within stories being told throughout. A narrator, patterned after Dahl himself, provides a framing device. Before Sugar relates his story himself, reading the first-person account from the doctor who then has the performer telling how he acquired these abilities. Many of these recollections are related directly to the camera by a talented range of actors including Ralph Fiennes, Benedict Cumberbatch, Dev Patel, and Ben Kingsley. This continues to show Anderson's obsession with narrative playfulness, about how storytelling itself is an act of creation that draws us deeper into people's souls.
Netflix paid over 600 million dollars for the Roald Dahl Story Foundation and they were clearly willing to show that money on-screen here. The elaborate production design and visual symmetry that is Anderson's most defining trademark are very present here as well. The stories-within-stories are presented as stage play, stage hands moving special effects in and out of scenes as the sets shift around the actors. It's an amazing visual experience, animation and puppetry being used to create a fantastically home-made, artistic world. Through it all is Dahl's story, which is an utterly charming tale of a cad slowly transforming into a selfless man almost as a side-effect of his latest con. In other words: This will do nothing to change the minds of anyone who finds Anderson's schtick insufferable. For those of us who love his style, this is another triumph, a master operating at full power. [9/10]
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