Review Reviews: Oscar-Nominated Live-Action Shorts

On Sunday, April 3, precisely one week after the presentation of the 94^th Academy Awards, Dartmouth’s Hopkins Center for the Arts exhibited all five films that received a nomination for Best Live Action Short Film. While not a prerequisite to nomination, it is significant that each of these films comes from a different country of origin—Denmark, the United States, Poland, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland.

We, the three authors of this piece, attended this combined screening event, held in the Spaulding Auditorium. Hereinbelow, we present our assembled thoughts on the films and, ultimately, our deliberations on whether the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) was correct in its verdict as to which of the films was most deserving of the Oscar.

One small note: Be wary of reading these reviews if you dislike the revelation of spoilers, which we do several times in the following…

On My Mind (Denmark, d. Martin Strange-Hansen)

This film is at once bleak and sentimental. Its cinematography is rather stark, and this quality helps reenforce the appropriately chilly atmosphere amidst which the film is set. To this end, the film overall comes across as rather raw, dealing with grief and loss, and evoking these quite visceral emotions in its audience. The film is technically quite proficient, feeling very impromptu and casual but also coordinated in a certain sense. This is in no small part owing to the naturalistic acting which the film foregrounds, but this is also due to its compact central premise, which, once again, plucks at the heartstrings of the spectator.

The film is shot in a simple and quite realistic, nonchalant manner, taking place predominantly in a bar and with only three substantial characters. The main character is a man who wanders into this bar and requests that he be allowed to partake of the karaoke machine. Specifically, he wishes to be recorded singing the song, “Always On My Mind” (hence the film’s title).

Various unforeseen obstacles present themselves as this man attempts to finish singing the song and a waitress attempts to capture a full recording. Eventually, it falls to the man to explain himself—that is, to explain why he wants such a recording. Suffice it to say, his reasoning, having to do with the concept of the soul, renders the bar’s proprietor and the waitress immediately empathetic; so too is the viewer instantly suffused with emotion. Indeed, that one becomes so profoundly affected by this film is ultimately its key element of success.

Apart from its intrinsically touching premise, however, the film has certain visual moments that are things of beauty. One particularly powerful visual idea in the film addresses this concept of the soul, visualizing it in the final scene as a handprint on glass. As water condenses on the glass, the imprint of a fleeing soul is rather beautifully envisioned.

The only critique that we voiced to this film was a small one: While it is touching and does much to evoke human sentiment, there is no real message or commentary levied.

Please Hold (United States, d. Kristen Davila)

This film depicts a man accused of a crime who is taken by a drone to a private prison. Ultimately, it is really a Black Mirror episode. The subtle and believable ways in which technology and a depersonalized system can work together to make a person into a slave are depicted in striking fashion.

This film was Sunil’s pick as the most deserving nominee, and his thoughts are as follows:

I think this film did a great job of showing complete and profound confusion and frustration with technology. It is my favorite of the films because of how realistic a situation like this seems. There could easily be a future in which everything is desensitized and disconnected from human interaction.

We already face the consequences of automation—we have the need today for actual human interaction to resolve problems; an automated customer service representative will not cut it.  We face problems with various technologies, and there’s always something additional attached. And many times we realize that we are closer to being the product than the consumer. Take this film, in which the prison system is the principal setting: The prison becomes an infrastructure for companies’ products, which are, in effect, people that they have within their system to then pay and divvy out. Essentially, people are products—they can be sold to other companies.

I appreciate this central premise in that I could see the allegory of it—the prison is itself a company, and it sells people to other companies. In this way, the premise resembles technologies that we have today. Take social media, for instance, where they’re seizing and selling our personal information. Also, a segment of the film in which the main character is compelled to labor at knitting clothes reminds me of all sorts of industries today in which the value of work doesn’t necessarily translate into what you can purchase.

The film shows how much these problems could be magnified by a lack of human interaction through pervasive technology.

This film was also Matt’s pick as the most deserving nominee. His thoughts are as follows:

Like Sunil, I saw in this film a thoroughly conceivable dystopian future. I was struck by the potency and relevance of certain messages that it seeks to convey. Take, for instance, the idea of some terrible clause being buried in the “terms and conditions” sections of companies’ digital contracts—the very same contracts on which so many people immediately click “OK.” That one can be legally bound to some abysmal fate as a consequence of such a contract seems a uniquely terrifying possibility, considering the sheer frequency with which we are prompted to approve terms and conditions for technologies and how habitual our approval of these contracts has become.

I also found fascinating the criticism levied against privatizing arms of the government. The film extrapolates such criticism well beyond mere prisons themselves. It essentially depicts courts run by way of technology companies, a terrifying prospect and one which is not inconceivable considering the increasing reliance of courts on virtual conferencing technologies, particularly during COVID. It is not even unreasonable to imagine a world, such as that depicted in this film, in which a judge is not present to ask what plea a defendant wishes to enter.

The film also foregrounds to great effect the problems with a depersonalized or indeed dehumanized justice system. The main character does not know the crime of which he is accused (he asks several times and is not understood by the drones). His attempts to get a lawyer are also particularly discouraging: the attorney options made available to him seem to come out of a video game, advertising previous results on a digital interface and requiring payment from the outset. Ultimately, this film says much about the importance of reading fine print, and it offers some important insights into why the justice system necessitates human contact—and why the Bill of Rights is so important.

The Dress (Poland, d. Tadeusz Łysiak)

This film is a profound study of the type of loneliness that eats at the soul, depicting a hotel maid with dwarfism whose utter loneliness stems not only from her short stature but from her profession. The film very easily secures the audience’s empathy for the character, as the director chooses to essentially “frontload” the film, showing this loneliness manifest in the humdrum of the maid’s life.

For the maid, Julka, her stature and status are synonymous. She is overlooked, both literally and as a result of her servantile role. These identities compound each other, perpetuating her sense of despair—particularly for her lack of romantic encounters, a relatable experience for many whose perceived physical or mental deficits dissuade approach. It’s important to note where she works: a motel frequented by truckers who come and go. These fleeting interactions are all she has to hold onto; the only remnants being the litter and mess the men leave for her to clean up after. Her coworker, often clinging onto the latest fashion magazine, barely makes the cut as a friend, as someone to hold onto, yet even she seems to be plagued by the same grimness as Julka. 

While the maid’s loneliness may seem about to change when she meets a truck driver who takes an interest in her, the film adopts a pessimistic view and shows that, despite her experiences with this man, she is in fact worse off in the end. Loneliness not only eats at the soul but also devours it to the point at which one can feel worthless. While we could hope for a Disney-type ending, we would be blatantly ignorant of the truth. Amidst the bright smiles on the coworker’s magazines are the lost faces of men and women, who never could find what they wanted—whose souls wander and, oftentimes, lose hope. 

The Long Goodbye (United Kingdom, d. Aneil Karia)

No, this is not the acclaimed 1973 Robert Altman adaptation of a Raymond Chandler novel. This particular film is so oblique and obscure that we hardly know what to write about it. It includes a virtually indecipherable rap at the end. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, this is the film that won the Academy Award. 

Ala Kachuu – Take and Run (Switzerland, d. Maria Brendle)

This is a truly moving, if sometimes frustrating, film that depicts a “kidnap wedding” in Kyrgyzstan. It has much to say about the rural-urban divide as well as the subjugation of women in this deeply oppressive culture. 

This film was Greg’s pick as the most deserving nominee, and his thoughts are as follows:

I think this is a truly great film. It highlights a social cause and is a thrilling experience. Specifically, it brings awareness to nomadic abduction marriages, and, in an age when many are fearful to speak out against certain cultural practices for fear of overstepping boundaries, this film properly asserts this tradition to be an awful one. Watching it, you really feel the human cost of this horrendous practice.

Apart from this central storyline, I think the film is effective in the ways in which it implicates women as well in this tradition. In addition to the male kidnappers, the film shows older women talk about how they too once cried. The female lead, they say, will likewise eventually have her tears subside. Clearly, this is a traumatic cultural experience that has been rationalized in their heads. Rather than seeking to end the trauma, they have essentially undergone cultural Stockholm Syndrome and are perfectly fine with continuing the tradition.

Finally, apart from being practical, there is also a metaphor in the car escape scene at the end of the film. Essentially, it is modernity that enables her to extract herself from the horrid situation that she has faced.