They Shoot Oscar Prognosticators, Don't They?
Handicapping the Oscar Shorts
By J. Don Birnam
February 15, 2017
BoxOfficeProphets.com
So, let’s look today at where the chips are likely to fall in the short races, though if you have other thoughts, you know what to do (Twitter, Instagram).
My other handicaps of the 2016-2017 Oscar categories so far are here for the below the line techs part I, here for the below the line techs part II, and here for the foreign, documentary, and animated races.
The Easy Call: Best Live Action Short.
The Best Live Action Short has the strongest overall combined entries of the year, and still, surprisingly, is perhaps the easiest call of the night. You can probably first discard Spain’s Timecode, which follows two parking garage attendants as they engage in shenanigans with each other as captured by the security cameras of their place of employment. It is funny but I’ve never seen a film this “light” triumph here, certainly not with weightier alternatives.
Denmark’s Silent Nights is also probably out. That short tells the story of a lonely and caring Danish woman as she cares for her aging alcoholic mother and enters into a relationship with a homeless Ghanaian she meets at a soup kitchen where she volunteers. The story is timely and emotionally arresting, but lacks that final punch that most of the winners here tend to have.
Next out is probably Hungary’s Sing, about a middle school choir that has a dirty little secret, and how children handle it once it is exposed. The story has a big heart, but again I do not see precedent for something like this winning at least not in the several years I’ve been watching the shorts.
The race is clearly between France’s Ennemis Interieurs (Enemies Within) and Switzerland’s La Femme et le TGV (The Woman and the Speed Train). The former is a very timely story about anti-Muslim racism and stereotyping, particularly in European nations and by other Muslims themselves. It raises important and challenging questions about some of the assumptions American audiences may make about these topics.
The reason I think La Femme is the clear winner is because it is funny and has a heart. It follows an elderly, somewhat cantankerous woman who loves to wave every morning and evening at the speeding train as it passes by her small Swiss chalet. The traditionalist woman, who still owns an old-school bakery, bikes to work, and does not know how to “send an Internet,” soon develops a pen pal relationship with the train’s conductor.
Stories that pull at the heartstrings win here often, but if they have a funny aspect to them, then it’s a sure fire thing. Think of last year’s cute story about the shy guy finding love on the Internet (The Stutterer) or the one about the terminally ill boy entering a fantastic land (Helium). Yeah, two shorts about suicide have also won here recently, but both also had hearts, and there is nothing really comparable here this year to take down La Femme.
Will win: La Femme et le TGV
Could win: Ennemis Interieurs
Medium Difficulty: Best Animated Short.
In contrast to the live action winners, the winners in the Animated Short category have been decidedly much more melancholic over the years. Perhaps Oscar voters do follow the honor system and do only vote for the ones they have seen, and the animators’ branch just has a different taste than the other ones?
This year I think you can discard the longest of the bunch, Pear Cider and Cigarettes, about a man dealing with his alcoholic friend. Length does not always translate into quality and neither does the adult nature of the film - I have seen both go down in races past and have no reason to expect this to change.
The cute movie about a musician and his daughter as she grows older, Pearl, can also safely be discarded. It is touching and has good music, but not much else to offer.
Likely in third place but definitely a potential winner is the interesting Blind Vaysha, about a girl cursed to only see the future through one eye and the past through the other. This has the most unique animation and is the most fable-like of the bunch. Yet neither of those things - strange animation or fable quality - has won this Oscar since I’ve been watching the shorts. They seem to go for somewhat slightly more traditional.
So it’s between Pixar’s Piper, the very cute story about the little sandpiper who is afraid of the water, and Borrowed Time, about a man looking back with sadness on the death of his father as he stands atop an abyss.
Do not make the mistake of assuming the Pixar movie is going to win. Many have been defeated, including Disney’s Get a Horse! and Sanjay’s Super Team just last year. And, when they’ve lost, they’ve done so to very melancholic, melodic shorts. From Bear Story to The Lost Thing, to Mr. Hublot, all of those stories were about solitary or lonely figures, just like Borrowed Time. To be fair, the times the Pixar movie has won it’s been for a cute little story like Feast, or when the others did not have that punch.
I think it will be close, but I will go with the stats over my own views on this one.
Will win: Borrowed Time
Could win: Piper
Anybody’s Guess: Best Documentary Short
This year, I think this is the hardest of the three, though I always do. The reason for it is simple: there is precedent for all types of documentaries to win here. You have the “feel good” stories about sweet or innocent people, like Inocente or The Lady in Number 6. You have the stories about people doing nice for others, including doctors, like Saving Face, and the stories about timely political conflict, like Strangers No More or last year’s winner, Girl In the River.
You have all five of them here. Three of the documentaries deal with Syria and/or the refugee crisis, starting with Watani: My Homeland, about a Syrian family and their journey from war strife in Aleppo to building a new life in a welcoming German town. It’s a wrenching story, but individual tales tend to win when they are uplifting, not when they’re this saddening.
4.1 Miles, meanwhile, chronicles the life of Greek coast guards off the island of Lesbos as they rescue and deal with refugees coming by boat from Turkey. Funnily enough, there is a similar movie in the Documentary Feature race, The Fire At Sea, a not uncommon occurrence. But, again, it is a more individual story and one that does not have the emotional power in the end to win, I don’t think.
The same is probably true of the other Netflix story here, Extremis, about doctors facing difficult ethical considerations as they have to counsel grieving family members about the survival chances of relatives paralyzed by crippling neurological diseases. It is hard to watch and heartbreaking, and something this bleak has not really won here.
So I think it is between the last movie about Syria, The White Helmets, and the Holocaust-themed documentary, Joe’s Violin. The former tells the amazing story of young men who volunteer in Syria to rescue people from the rubble. Through amazing raw footage of rescue missions you gain some access into these brave (and perhaps doomed) men’s lives, and you see some hope for humanity yet.
But a not dissimilar story, Body Team 12, about rescuers during the Ebola crisis, did lose last year. So that leaves the story about the old man who survived World War II in a Russian labor camp and then bought a violin when he was liberated, which violin he now donates to a program to help underprivileged children in New York City public schools. Through the story of how the man’s family fared during the Holocaust, and the story of the girl’s own efforts to improve her lots in life, one again gets a glimpse at a better humanity and is lift uplifted in spirit.
A few years back, two years in a row uplifting stories about inspiring people triumphed, one of them about music (The Lady in Number 6). So that is my pick, but the potential spoiler has been named as well.
Will win: Joe’s Violin
Could win: The White Helmets
Next up: The End is Near, Folks. We’ll Look at the Supporting Acting and Directing Races Next