Movie review: 2007 Academy Award Nominated Short Films

by John P. Meyer

I just love it that Dallas has a theater with: a) an appreciation for the pure aesthetics of movie making b) a willingness to surrender one of their paying auditoriums to a predictably low box office-drawing show and c) the raw balls to schedule screenings of a program such as the 2007 Academy Award Nominated Short Films, which opened on Friday (Feb. 15).

The five live action short films in this year's program run a total of 137 minutes; the corresponding five animated flicks will cost you 90 minutes of your waking life. In both cases the expenditure would be darn well worth it. How else are you going to be able to kick back on the sofa surrounded by your mates on Oscar night and - as the presenters for the Best Shorts awards reel off the film titles - make a comment such as: "yeah, it's a pretty decent lineup this year, but The Tonto Woman really blew me away. That Francesco Quinn has the searing gaze and intense screen presence of his famous dad." (You shoot - you score!)

Here's the film-by-film lowdown, starting with the lineup of live action short films:

The Substitute: this Italian entry has Andrea Jublin directing himself as the title character, a decidedly off-kilter substitute teacher who acts more like a mischievous student in class than an authority figure. When his secret is revealed, so is his refreshingly ethical approach to business dealings.

In Tanghi Argentini (Belgium), a lonely middle-aged man uses his office computer to connect in cyberspace with a woman who wants to take their relationship to the next level - by meeting in person. Unfortunately for Patrick, she's a fiend for dancing, and her dancing cup of tea is the Tango. Which - in a moment of weakness - he claims to be adept at. Now, he's got to put up or shut up, and only his ladies man co-worker Andre can teach him to Tango in time. Thus begins a beautiful friendship.

At Night (Denmark) is the most difficult of the live-action entries to watch, because it's so unremittingly dark. It chronicles the shared purgatory of three young women in the cancer ward of a hospital. The only thing the girls have going for them is each other, and when their number dwindles, so does their hold on hope. When only one remains, she must make the choice to reach out - or to simply give up.

The Mozart of Pickpockets (France) tells the short story of a pair of middling-talented crooks working the tourist trade on the streets of Paris. Their down-trending fortunes take a sharp upturn when they decide to take in an orphaned street kid, who soon shows them a thing or two about low-level, high-volume theft. Crime appears to be paying pretty well - at least for a while.

As noted, The Tonto Woman (United Kingdom), from a short story by Elmore Leonard, stars Anthony Quinn's son Francesco as a cowboy/gunfighter named Ruben Vega. While job-hunting in Arizona, Vega encounters a comely young woman named Sarah (Charlotte Asprey) who's confined to a solitary existence in an isolated ranch house by her land baron husband due to her status as a former captive of the Mojave Indians. (Well, it's not so much her ex-captive status, I suppose, as it is what her captives did to her: she sports the sort of tattoo that no one - not even the gothest of goths - would care to replicate.) Vega is visionary enough to see beneath the inked skin to the lovely and resilient woman within, and for this Sarah's possessive rancher husband will make him pay.

As for the animated short films:

Même les pigeons vont au paradis (Even pigeons go to heaven), the entry from France, is a scathing (and hilarious) indictment of the sort of religion that depends upon one's monetary support to secure one's place in heaven. The snake-oil peddling priest trying to interest his peasant widower parishioner in an afterlife condo may not have it all figured out, though. (Thank heaven.)

My Love (Russia) is the most visually sumptuous of the animated entries, appearing as a series of impressionist frames magically endowed with movement. It's like a Tolstoy tale painted by Monet one cell at a time, documenting the coming of age of a 19th century teenage boy who falls in love simultaneously with his housekeeper's daughter - who is eminently accessible - and a mysterious and elegant neighbor girl who - enticingly - is not. Guess which one he scorns in favor of the other, and then comes to regret it? (It is a Russian story, after all.) Pass the vodka.

There's something very Tim Burton-ish about Madame Tutli-Putli, the entry from Canada, which centers on the train journey undertaken by a frail-looking, melancholic spinster lady with an awful lot of luggage. When a late night unscheduled stop on a forest siding allows the surreptitious embarkation of some sinister characters with gassing gear, things become only slightly weirder than they've been to that point.

My favorite of all the shorts - live action and animated - is the UK/Polish co-production of Peter & the Wolf, an updated, twisted-plot version of the classic Prokofiev tale incorporating the original musical themes. Don't expect the hunters to come to the rescue in this version of the story, whose subversive ending strikes a blow against civilized conduct. HOO-ray!

Finally, we're treated to the five-minute roughly-sketched visual accompaniment to a 1969 taped interview of John Lennon conducted by Jerry Levitan - who was 14 years old at the time and snuck into the "Imagine"-man's dressing room with his reel-to-reel tape recorder. In the resulting I Met the Walrus (Canada), animator Josh Raskin's visualizations bear strong resemblance to Terry Gilliam's Monty Python cutout plays; the Lennon/Levitan dialog is classic 60's counter-culture, with a focus on Mr. Lennon's trouble getting into the United States (due to his anti-war agitation).

Here's hoping you'll make time to take in these tasty tidbits before Oscar time.

GOOD IN WHAT WAY?: "In that time, I have fornicated with many women. Maybe 300. Maybe not that many, maybe only 200." - Ruben Vega, in confession

"Do you mean 'bad' women, or, uh, 'good' women?" - Priest

"They were all good, Padre." - Ruben Vega