Fauve

Very well made short with some great performances by the child actors! Despite the tragic content I couldn't stop thinking about how as a child I was terrified by quicksand and how I never encountered it in my entire life.

Greetings again from the darkness. Two young boys, obviously good friends, are spending the day just hanging out and exploring the area on the outskirts of town. They are engaged in an ongoing game of one-upmanship as they spontaneously compete over a string of mindless pranks to see who is the bravest or toughest.

Director Jeremy Comte places Tyler (Felix Grenier) and Benjamin (Alexandre Perreault) in common situations that most of us (at least from my generation) easily recognize. A vacant lot or deserted train car are easily turned into a playground as the mischievous boys deal with their unchaperoned independence. We find ourselves chuckling at their harmless teasing ... well, harmless until it's not.

Even with a run time of only 14 minutes, director Comte doesn't rush the set up. It's just a lazy, care-free day until the boys make their way into an open-pit mining zone. For someone with a quicksand-phobia (thanks to those early Tarzan movies), the shift in tone delivers an emotional gut-punch. A terrific final scene caps off a powerhouse short film that deserves the festival accolades it has received. From Canada with French dialogue, expect this one to receive even more award consideration.

Childhood, beauty, loss, death, time and nature. Really good short. The child performances are great, the cinematography is at times fabulous and I really loved its message. When the best things happen, playing with your friend in the green fields, something can happen and ruin your life. But even when that happens, no one will be there to really understand your pain and sorrow and time will move on and things will keep going while you feel guilty and sad. And nature will be destructive and beautiful at the same time. But, that's how life is. When you least expect it, nature has cunning ways of finding our weakest spots. Its a small, quiet, but poetic short

Today I went to the annual showing of the Oscar Nominated Live Action Shorts. I've gone to these showings for at least a decade and must admit that this year's batch was the most god-awful films....all of them very depressing and a few so depressing that I left the theater wanting to shoot myself!! Among the five films, "Fauve" gets my pick for the second most depressing and awful short. The acting is really, really good....the story was about as enjoyable an experience as eating glass.

The story involves two French-Canadian kids who are playing around some dangerous places. Of all the places, however, the worst turns out to be a construction-like setting. While the place appears abandoned, it isn't and the boys end up hiding in a quarry. The bottom of it, surprisingly, is like quicksand--and soon the two boys become stuck and seriously in risk of drowning. What's next? Remember...the film is depressing!

The acting by the kids is really nice--and that's why I appreciated the film even though I hated watching it. However, I also think it's the weakest of the five films and cannot see how it was nominated nor do I think it has a huge chance of winning. I also thought the symbolism about the fox near the end felt a bit pretentious.

It reminds me the short stories by Dumitru Radu Popescu. Same atmosphere, same construction of tension, same end. A game in, maybe summer holiday , familiar to large public. Two boys, a train, an open - pit. And something changing the innocence of run, jokes, joy. Admirable young actors and inspired presence of the fox. Great cinematography and wise use of symbols.