In the Shadow of the Cypress*
The five animated short films nominated for this year’s Academy Awards, currently showing in a block at The SLO Film Center at the Palm Theatre, are creative, if a bit obtuse.
Fair warning: these are not cartoons, and some are not child-friendly. Two films feature gratuitous male nudity, and some depict scenes of violence. The plot lines are all diverse and leave us with many questions.
The 18-minute Belgian-French-Dutch film Beautiful Men, written and directed by Nicolas Keppens, gives us three brothers in various stages of baldness who travel from the Netherlands to Istanbul to have hair transplants at a famous clinic. Unfortunately, the brother who booked the trip messed up, and there is only one appointment available. So they must choose who gets it, which leads to acrimony (we might guess that this isn’t the first time they have been at odds). But then, fortuitously, a fire at their hotel causes several patients to depart, opening up spaces for them all to get their coveted transplants. We are left to wonder: was this life-changing for them or not?
There’s no dialogue in the Iranian short In the Shadow of the Cypress*, directed by Hossein Molayemi and Shirin Sohani and produced by Barfak Animation Studio. The 20-minute minimalist film is about an elderly ship captain and his daughter who live together in a stark house on a beach. The captain has flashbacks to violent sea conflicts and engages in self-destructive and violent outbursts, which finally drive his daughter to leave him. On her way out, she encounters a whale which has beached itself outside their home. She tries valiantly to push it back into the water, to cool it with water, to cover it with sheets, all to no avail. Her father joins in to help rescue the whale, finally sacrificing himself by sinking his ship to pull the whale free. The film’s title presents a question that the film doesn’t expressly answer: what does “the cypress” refer to?
Magic Candies has earned the first “Best Animated Short Film” Oscar nomination for the legendary Japanese studio Toei Animation. Written by Baek Hee-na and directed by Daisuke Nishio, its 21 minutes is a picture book brought to life. Dong-Dong is a young boy who plays alone, hiding himself from other children his age. He buys some candies which look like the marbles he plays with, and they turn out to give him the power to hear and communicate with the sofa, his dog, his deceased grandmother, and falling leaves. He also is able to hear the inner thoughts of his strict father, who really loves him. Finally Dong-Dong is able to reach out and connect with other children from whom he was estranged. A sweet film, it raises questions about how to understand the people and other beings around us.
The strangest film of the group, Wander to Wonder, offers superb animation that at times looks real. A group of small animated characters, much like elves, are in a children’s television show and apparently live together with their human host. Mary, Billybud, and Fumbleton are left abandoned when their host dies (we just see his feet and part of his torso lying prone and don’t know why he died). They break open a pickle jar and kill a pigeon to eat but grow increasingly desperate. The omnipresent flies infest the rotting corpse. Finally a fire frees the characters from their captivity (they escape it by hiding in an oven) . . . but what fate awaits them? There are more questions than answers in this 14-minute British short written and directed by Nina Gantz.
Yuck! (French: Beurk!, written and directed by Loïc Espuche, in French with English subtitles) is about a boy and a girl and a group of their other young friends. The members of the group are all repulsed by and like to disparage others who kiss—loudly proclaiming “Yuck!” when they encounter such scenes of endearment. The animation, depicting love and desire in shimmering pink lips, is charming. The 13-minute film’s depiction of peer pressure asks what it takes to overcome it—and other complexities of growing up—to follow one’s bliss?
* Editor’s Note (3/2/25): In the Shadow of the Cypress won the Oscar for Animated Short Film at the Academy Awards presentation on March 2, 2025. Oscar-Nominated Animated Shorts are now playing at The SLO Film Center at the Palm Theatre.