The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2015: Live Action

Talkhon Hamzavi's Parvaneh is so simple and built on a minimalist relationship that, at twenty-five minutes long, is just asking to be underdeveloped and half-baked. Rather than making the teen girls act like ordinary teen girls, with a lot on their minds and little time to get it all out, Hamzavi casts the short in such a minimalistic light that little gets revealed about the private lives of these girls, and, in turn, there's not a great deal of development or connection that can be formed to these two fairly empty individuals. On a side-note, however, Kashani and Graf strike up a solid chemistry, leading to believe had Parvaneh been extended to a feature-length film that we would've gotten a deeper, more impacting relationship out of them than the stunted one we have here. Even when the short tries to be gritty and a bit seedy, having the two girls go to a club late one night with Parvaneh nearly being publicly molested, it's too little and ends in a predictable manner, with few repercussions and little impact whatsoever.

Wei Hu's Butter Lamp is a short film that would be the kind of profound statement on culture, a generational divide, or a shifting time period if it actually had something remotely compelling to say. Anyone remember taking a trip to that quirky photography place at the mall with your family and how agonizing it was to stand still for five minutes while all the members in your family had to perfect their poses so they can receive a portrait that will collect dust on your mantle? Imagine watching the first part of that play out in a short film with nothing remotely compelling to say outside of casual small talk between the photographers and those being photographed.

The Phone Call instantly reminds me of Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1, a short documentary which, like The Phone Call, won an Oscar for its respective category. That film showed the daily routines of several dispatchers at a crisis hotline, helping numerous souls, in this case, veterans, who were on the teetering edge of suicide and either needed companionship or some sort of guidance. Judging by these two beautifully-made shorts, the relationship dispatchers form with their callers through the means of a telephone is one that we will likely see develop and grow overtime, and if such an idea is carried out with the kind of heartbreaking realism and brutal honesty these two shorts have depicted, I'm all for it.

At thirty-nine minutes, Aya is by far the longest of the 2015 Oscar nominated live action short films, and alongside The Phone Call, it's the best, as it focuses on an unlikely friendship that develops over complete and total chance. Aya is a beautiful short film because it understands the beauty of character and character motivations, confining two individuals, who should've never met each other in the first place, to a small space (a vehicle) for an extended period of time, as they embark on a peculiar destination and enjoy the company of one another along the way. Directors Oded Binnun and Mihal Brezis understand that it's possible for Aya not to know why she does what she does, but to focus on her selfless behavior and her embracement of all that is impulsive is a delightfully original concept explored to great effect here, given such a short runtime. Aya works because it's not only emotionally honest, but rich and full in the sense of character exploration.

The concluding short in the Shorts HD sponsored special of the Oscar nominated live action short films of 2015 is also the most narratively and thematically simple. Boogaloo and Graham functions in that cute and nostalgic feeling of childhood whimsy and optimism, despite this particular short being set in a place evidently burdened by an outside force. Because it gets an uncommon idea right, it deserves to at least be seen; being nominated is a different story.