While people may have different opinions on the live action portion of the Oscar-nominated short films this year, I doubt that anyone found them funny. Suicide, abortion, grief, and corpses and all of them are sad or depressing. Maybe only the Danes (or Wes Anderson if you’re really into that kind of thing) could bring some light to those dark topics.
But these Danish films! In “Knight of Fortune,” Lasse Lyskjer Noer’s wonderfully twisted comedy about two widowers who bond over toilet paper and seeing a loved one whose flesh according to a couple of ghoulish mortuary attendants may be the color of a banana, there is not a lot to laugh at. Though, in the sickly spill of the morgue’s fluorescents, no one’s skin is exactly glowing.
If “Knight of Fortune” is violence done by hand with love and care until it hurts just enough to make you leave it alone and let it rest for a while, Misan Harriman’s “The After” is violence done with whatever sharp object happens to be handy at the time and then left untreated until infection sets in. This beautifully shot film features David Oyelowo tearing his clothes in anguish as he plays a London ride-share driver coming apart at the seams after an unimaginable personal tragedy. A trite soundtrack bullies us toward an overwrought climax we could have gotten to on our own if given half a chance.
More restrained but ultimately more powerful, “Invincible” follows the last 48 hours in the life of a 14-year-old boy (Léokim Beaumier-Lépine), as he fights to keep his emotions from getting him kicked out of yet another center for troubled youth. The performances are strong and sure. The direction (by Vincent René-Lortie, inspired by an agonizing personal memory) is brave and intuitive. And Alexandre Nour Desjardins’ quietly intimate photography does much to serve a film that knows when it comes to feelings, less is often more.
When it comes to Wes Anderson, less is almost never better. In “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,” as Benedict Cumberbatch flits through a forest of elaborate sets and Ralph Fiennes changes character onscreen while addressing the camera in multiple story lines simultaneously all in 37 minutes of near-constant voice-over narration you may find yourself thinking: This feels like hours. Adapted from Roald Dahl’s original, this is an ever-shifting story set against ever-changing backdrops. It’s an exquisite puzzle box of a movie that’s lovely and clever and finally just too much.
Nazrin Choudhury’s “Red, White And Blue,” the only overtly political entry this year, is easily the strongest film in the program even if you take into account Anderson’s flash and fame. Stuffing its cold steel message inside soft velvet packaging, this warmly photographed, beautifully acted study of economic desperation tracks a single mother (Brittany Snow) who has to cross state lines to terminate a pregnancy. Built brick by brick out of small, telling details, the film ends with a bite that sticks around long after any news report would have moved on to other things.
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