Written by contributor Simoun Marsada
Even with the current pandemic affecting even film sectors, there is no stopping the vibrant filmmakers of the festival from offering the most thought-provoking and most stimulating films. And like any other year, this year’s HollyShorts wouldn’t be complete without the warm fuzzies and the social commentary brought by animation shorts. The thought alone that every frame of the films is literally toiled by hand makes them worthy candidates for dissection and appreciation.
There were a lot of animation shorts in the lineup but below are a few that caught our attention!
Goldfish
Daniel Zvereff’s Goldfish is a four-minute short that is packing with a message. It tells the story of the mundane life of a worker bee and his attempts to burst the seemingly inescapable dome he’s under. And his attempts are very outlandish, one is trying to create a spaceship. Reminiscent of the rhythm of David Lynch’s Eraserhead, Goldfish is a study of what happens when our mill is finally low on grist. Yes, the idea of escaping our monotonous life can be a real fantasy at times but the short film displayed that a fish destined to be bigger will always outgrow their swimming limits and have to be set free into the ocean where it could grow exponentially.
Into the Flame
The experimental short by Sean McClintock follows Floyd as he wonders about the disappearance of his wife and gets chased by bugs as the mystery presses deeply. Very Kafkaesque in approach, Into the Flame pumps a lingering sense of doom with its every minute. It spirals into the idea that some transformations can’t be escaped from — how it relates to your life is something only you can know. The recent years are a saga of change and like the life cycle of moths, dissolution can lead to something powerful.
Winter in the Rainforest
Seamlessly mixing stop-motion puppetry and real-life sceneries, Anu-Laura Tuttelberg’s Winter in the Rainforest is an eerie and otherworldly short that showcases what happens in the frigid times in the rainforest. Watching the short will remind you of old documentaries from the 70s albeit with a very alien twist. The short follows different creatures in the rainforest as they try to survive the winter and present that even in the coldest regions, something beautiful will always be born out of it. Filmed in 16mm and meshed with gorgeous sound mixing, Winter in the Rainforest will leave you chilly but with a better appreciation of film and nature both from this world and not.
The Levers
Written and directed by Boyoung Kim, The Levers is South Korea’s entry to the fervid lineup. Typical to South Korean fiction, the short portrays the harrowing contrast of social classes, and how the suffering and eventual death of the working class can be an amusement to the upper class.
Grim, moody, but truly fascinating, The Levers asks the question of how far would you go to go up the ranks of society? And if you are ready for the perpetual painful cycle it brings?
Meudon
Leah Dubuc’s Meudon is an intriguing reimagining of the tumultuous relationship of the most prolific sculptors in history, Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel. In all its seven minutes, Meudon manages to explore and flesh out the intimacy of art and how cruel it can be to people bound to it. With each frame coloured using hand-painted acrylic, Meudon will vividly remind you of how art pieces are milestones to the artists’ troubled lives and how love and career can be a tug-of-war that spans a lifetime.
Passage
From India, Asavari Kumar’s Passage encapsulates the pain of transition to adulthood, where comfort and magic are finally gone, and what’s left is the unfillable emptiness that is initially dreadful but becomes normal. But this is only the fringes of the entire subtext, Passage is a story about immigration and the distortion of the so-called American Dream. The coming-of-age nuances and the voyage to another land perfectly tangle together as once you reach a certain age, you’ll find yourself in what is seemingly endless terrain, looking to the illusion of hope and at the same time, looking back to what once was.
Rag Doll
Spanning 18 minutes, Leon Lee’s Rag Doll is an epic journey of a young girl losing her mother and her ways to make her alive through different art forms in different stages of her life. The stop-motion film is, in a way, very meta as it shows how we cope up with life and expose its ugly realities through art. With a rigid criticism of persecution and violence and a heartwarming love letter to art, Rag Doll is the selection not to be missed.
Animation isn’t any less of the prestige, and this is testified by the glory that Disney and Studio Ghibli are having. Despite this, animation is a tricky thing, animation can only do so much, what should be tantamount is the vibrating message found in every stroke of the hand. The sheer will and imagination to bring animation to life is a marvel lost to many of us and it’s very heart-swelling to see filmmakers choosing animation to share pieces of their hearts and minds with us. With that, we tip our hat to the remarkable animated shorts from the HollyShorts Film Festival. It was a hectic year but it’s also a fitting time to reflect on how powerful art can be. We look forward to next year!
