Helium

Helium (2013) is a Danish short film co-written and directed by Anders Walter.

Seven-year-old Pelle Falk Krusbæk plays Alfred, a young boy who is dying, and is afraid of death. Casper Crump portrays Enzo, a hospital janitor who bonds with the boy and tells him about a magical world called Helium where Alfred will go after death. Marijana Jankovic is the nurse who risks her job to allow Enzo to finish telling his story to Alfred.

I was amazed at how much emotional material director Walter managed to fit into this 23-minute--movie. Yes it's a tearjerker, but what's wrong with that?

Helium will work well on the small screen. It has a solid IMDb rating of 7.3. I thought it was much better than that and rated it 10. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences thought it was much better than that--Helium won the Oscar for Best Short film in 2014.

Today I went to a special showing of the Oscar-nominated Live Action films. This was a very unusual year because I don't see any clear winner nor did I see any film I disliked. Oddly, however, I didn't see any I loved either and picking the winner is amazingly difficult. If I did pick one, I'd probably bet on "Helium". This is because although there were three super-depressing films about important social issues (the sort of things the academy often like), "Helium" is clearly the most artistic and has a professional quality none of the other shorts can approach.

"Helium" is a depressing little film. A new orderly is working at the hospital and strikes up a friendship with a scared little boy. He's scared because he's dying--and to him, Heaven doesn't seem like a very fun place to go. So, to ease his fears, the orderly makes up a story about a magical place called Helium--because the boy is so infatuated with balloons and dirigibles*. However, before he's able to finish the story, the boy is moved to a critical care ward--one where this new employee is not allowed to go. But he cannot live with himself knowing about this afraid little boy and he decides to sneak in and ease his mind with more stories about the magical land of Helium.

The film is breathtaking with its artistry. Very professional...but also very depressing. A wonderfully made film and one worth seeing...provided you bring along some Kleenex.

*It was interesting that the boy had a lot of models of these balloons and dirigibles in the hospital room. More interesting to me was his Hindenburg model as the swastikas on its tail fins were whited out.

This movie undeniably shows the power of storytelling. The animation used to depict the imaginary world of 'helium' is just superb.

However, I feel like the 'real world' could have been better crafted. For example:

• show the cleaner apply for the job and lie on his experience as a cleaner
• get the cleaner to interact with other sick people, who are boring compared to the main child character
• the coffee scene with the colleague: why is the cleaner not in his uniform?Why would he have a jug of coffee for himself?
• the child character seems like a pretty down-to-earth logical child. Yet it looks like all of a sudden he throws away all his critical mindset as soon as he hears the new cleaner. He could have said in a sign of disbelief: 'I was never told this. How come you know and not my parents?'

Bo-focking-hoo. A young boy is dying. It's so saaaad (not really). Luckily, there's a dimwitted janitor there, to tell him stupid stories about a magical afterlife-place called Helium. Unfortunately, the relationship between these two is so forced, and the stories about Helium are so meaningless and without reference, that the movie becomes an unfunny parody of itself. And it doesn't take long before you're hoping the kid will just go ahead and croak already.

Sad music is smeared thickly as the boy's condition is worsening, and the filmmakers begs the audience for sympathy. Yet we're never given any reason to why we should care about this kid at all, other than him being a kid; which is just awful screen writing. But even if the script had been written in a smoother fashion, the fact that anyone would make a film of such a terrible concept in the first place, is mind-boggling. I mean, a dying kid? Really? Could you possibly be any less creative in your plea for emotions?

The overdose of sap is so severely lacking a pinch of anything cute, quirky or fun, that the whole thing ends up as something sticky you want to wipe off your shoe.

I feel dirty after having watched this crap.

Beautiful story with the power of storytelling. I was amazed at how much emotional material the director managed to fit into this short film. Well done.