The largest kids short offering at the 2014 Milwaukee Film Festival featured an assortment of different films with varying levels of animation, cinematography, and plot. Fringe contributor John Fennimore breaks down his favorite and least favorite of the bunch.
Sniffles, Jeremy Galante & David Cowles
How would you feel if you lost your nose? This short is about a dog that does just that, and must travel from the comic panels where he’s confined and go into the real world to find it. The short is shot as a stop-motion animation. But instead of clay, it uses cut out frames for the dog posed in the real world like standees. The contrast between the 2D visuals with the 3D world looks good, but the animation doesn’t look as organic as it could have. The animation, combined with the simple story, feels more like a video you would find on YouTube rather than a theatrical short. Though you won’t feel as much immersion as you would get from most animation, this short still stands as a good opener to the program.
7/10
Cootie Contagion, Josh Smooha
Forget about Ebola. Cooties are the real danger according to this short. The story is about a boy who is at high risk of dying from a cootie infection after being invited to an attractive girl’s birthday party. I get the same vibe from this film as I do from “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” by Jeff Kinney. The cute yet overdramatic kids story is very well handled mostly because of the characters and dialogue. And the child actors, while wooden at times, do a very good job of keeping up the energy. This is a film you shouldn’t stay home sick from.
9/10
Hedgehogs and the City, Evalds Lacis
After having most of their forest home cut down to make way for human development, the animals of the forest try to make it in the big city. The animals make their own by doing favors for the humans and getting paid. The animation and art style is very akin to “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.” It’s stilted, but with charming characters. A big problem with this film is that it’s trying to establish a feeling of harmony between humans and nature through humorous means. But the way the harmony plays out is not entirely clear and it ultimately falls apart by the ending. The animation would have been perfect for the humorous approach to the topic, but a lack of consistency doesn’t let it fully shine.
8/10
Dancing with Style, Xander de Boer
This short is a documentary centering around one 14-year-old boy who loves to dance. He is constantly picked on by his classmates for his passion. After getting a chance to perform in front of all of them, does he risk further bullying, or does he prove that he has the power to keep on dancing?
In addition to bullying, this film deals with themes and concepts that are very bold for children nine and up, including homosexuality and gender roles. The themes are very powerful and moving, and the way they portray the person is handled very well, but I feel like the themes could be played down a little. The constant barrage of anti-bullying gets exhausting after a while. Which is a shame, because if it had a bit more subtly, it would be a lot more palatable and stick better.
8.5/10
My Strange Grandfather, Dina Velikovskaya
We all get a little annoyed by our family. But a little girl has an especially harder time trying to cope with her grandfather, who spends all his time collecting trash at the beach. The animation is stilted, but the puppets have a lot less charm to them than in “Hedgehogs and the City.” You do see the two bond over the course of the short, but it happens too soon. Overall, I didn’t take as much away from this short.
5/10
The Girl with the World in her Hair, Debbie Howard
A girl talks about her long, bushy hair. There’s not too much to this film other than that. I would’ve loved a deeper meaning and story arc to having such long hair, because I think the concept is ripe for something like that. But the girl doesn’t do anything other than talk about her long hair and the problems with having it. She does talk about how she likes her hair the way it is and doesn’t want anything different. It would be a good message but the explanation of all the bad points about having long hair and justifying having long hair by saying it’s better than your dad’s bald head undermines its good morals. And it doesn’t help that there are childlike drawings flying around, the short looks like it was filmed in 1993 rather than the time it was actually filmed (2011).
2/10
Matilde, Vito Palmieri
We often see works of art named after their main character. But this is one of a few to fully embrace the idea. The film fully embodies the experiences of the characters in question. Through the audio, we get to experience what life is like for Matilde, who has a hearing impairment. The squeaks and creaks of the desks and chairs are almost unbearable, a problem that may seem trivial to most people. But through careful observation, Matilde manages to solve the problem. The themes are great and the acting of Matilde as she goes through thought processes are believable. But the film seems a bit too slow. Plot developments get the time they need, but there are times where I just get scenes of Matilde walking and I just want it to move on. Although the acting when characters are silent is well done, the acting where characters are actually talking, feels a bit unnatural. This is a shame because I can see this film being even more powerful if it weren’t for those problems.
8.5/10
Twins in Bakery, Mari Miyazawa
This short is what happens when “Toy Story” plays with its food. After a baker closes his failing shop for the night, two hot dogs try to spruce up the place. The way they put together the different characters and scenes using food is very clever. However, the animation often dips in uniformity and just consists of food dancing around. The story is a bunch of cute scenes with little ties between each other. I’d like to see this short ironed out a bit with a more compelling narrative.
7/10
Sweet Love, Albert Jan van Rees
This short tells the story about a world where candy is only for the rich. Nobody is richer than Ralf Kwist, the owner of a monopoly on confectionery. But when he tries to take over a factory owned by a ragtag gang of children, trouble arises.
The set design, costume design, and prop design are very well made. But they don’t have a chance to establish the tone of the short. The film takes itself too seriously. You’d think that the use of child actors would give the “Godfather” vibe an entertaining twist, but it doesn’t do anything unique or clever with the concept. The dialogue is pandering at best, with candy, fart jokes, stereotypes aplenty. There is black character that is too lazy to hold down a decent job and is accused of stealing. And why did they think this short would benefit from musical numbers?
The visuals are pretty good and the black character is eventually seen as the hero. But everything just falls flat. The stereotypical characters fall flat, the weak climax falls flat, and the tone falls flat. Nothing else works to this film’s advantage, and not even the eye candy can fix that.
3/10