The 5th Short Film Hall of Fame

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Just dropping this here: we should make the shorts hall of fame an ongoing thing.
Thanks for hosting and hell yeah there should be a lot more Short HoFs in the near future. Are you up to host the 6th Short?



Just wanted to say I hope you guys are over those grim images in Night and Fog, but I hope no one forgets what happened there.

A BIG thanks to everyone for joining and picking some really neat short films. I liked or appreciated them all! So hard to rank them as they all have merit. Anyway here's my list:

1 Night and Fog
2 Seven
3 Nu
4 A Gun for George
5 Hedgehog in the Fog
6 The House Is Black
7 Goodbye Mommy
8 The Heart of the World
9 Brats
10 Un obus partout
11 Malice in Wonderland



HEDGEHOG IN THE FOG
(1975, Norstein)



"If the horse goes to sleep, will it sink in the fog?"

That's the question that little Hedgehog (Mariya Vinogradova) asks himself as he stumbles upon a magical-looking white horse in the midle of the forest. Will it sink in the fog? Should he go explore? You see, little Hedgehog seems to be a bit too preoccupied about "creepy creatures" in the fog, but should he be?

Hedgehog in the Fog is an impressively made short, in terms of animation. But more importantly, an incredibly charming one. It follows Hedgehog as he embarks on a journey to meet his friend Bear (Vyacheslav Nevinnyy). But on the road, he gets lost in the fog as anxiety kicks in and he starts feeling terrified about the different creatures around him: an owl, a snail, a bat, an elephant, and much, much more.

But not the horse. The horse draws him in, and perhaps helps him realize that not everything has to go wrong; not everything has to be bad or terrifying. The fog doesn't have to be bad, not every creature is out to get him, things that were lost can be found, paths that were missed can be retaken, and true friends will always worry for you and wait for you.

Grade:
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I forgot the opening line.
Glad to see Hedgehog in the Fog win the coveted second place spot (nothing was going to beat Night and Fog in this Hall of Fame, so I had interest in which would rank highest out of the rest.) I really enjoyed it, and ranked it highest apart from my nom and of course Night and Fog which I simply had to vote in first place. All the films were great really, and I really enjoyed this particular Hall. There are some that I can't believe are near the bottom on my list, but that was because of the sheer quality of all the noms.

1 - Night and Fog
2 - The Heart of the World
3 - Hedgehog in the Fog
4 - The House is Black
5 - A Gun For George
6 - Goodbye Mommy
7 - Shell All
8 - Seven
9 - Nu
10 - Malice in Wonderland
11 - Brats

Edit - I meant to add : Thanks jiraffejustin a bunch for hosting!
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Remember - everything has an ending except hope, and sausages - they have two.
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Latest Review : Le Circle Rouge (1970)



I sent my ballot so hastily that I didn't even remember how I voted Had to ask jj to send it back to me.

Anyway, here's my ranking...

1) Night and Fog
2) A Gun for George
3) Seven
4) The House Is Black
5) Shell All
6) Hedgehog in the Fog
7) Nu
8) The Heart of the World
9) Goodbye Mommy
10) Malice in Wonderland
11) Brats

If you've seen my reviews, you'll see that my lowest ranked one (Brats) got a
, so not a weak one in the bunch. Also, as I wrote about Hedgehog in the Fog now, I realized I should probably swap it with Shell All, but what's done is done.



Let the night air cool you off
Thanks for hosting and hell yeah there should be a lot more Short HoFs in the near future. Are you up to host the 6th Short?
If somebody else would do it, I'd definitely let them do it instead of me. But if nobody else has any interest in running the next one, I'd do it just to make it happen.



I know my sense of urgency has waned, but...

UN OBUS PARTOUT
(2015, Najjar)



"You want to die"
"No, I want to live"

Lebanon, 1982. The country is right in the middle of a civil war, while also trying to fend off military occupations from both Syria and Israel. The times of peace are few and war has become part of regular life, although "life" might not be the best term. With explosions a common occurrence, snipers being a frequent sight, and destroyed buildings the norm, survival is the more appropriate term.

It is in that setting that Un obus partout takes place. It follows Gabriel (Arthur Dupont), a young man desperate to see his fiancée in the other side of the city. The problem? To get there, he has to cross a bridge heavily guarded by enemy snipers. The plan? He recruits his friend Mokhtar (Thomas Blumenthal) to make a mad dash through the bridge in an old car as the snipers are distracted watching the 1982 World Cup.

Director Zaven Najjar does a great job with a sleek animation style that uses silhouette-like figures. This serves to accentuate the kinetic nature of the story and makes the visuals pop out more. I also thought that the use of a soccer game to contrast against the violence of the setting was an effective choice, while also highlighting two elements that define our humanity: our desire to have fun and our need to love.

I can't imagine what it would be like to live in a situation like this, where this violence ends up becoming just part of the day. So in a way, I understand Gabriel's urgency to not put his life and his love on hold while the war recedes. His determination to risk his life to see his fiancée goes to the very nature of our humanity; our desire to do more than survive, but to live and love.

Grade:



GOODBYE MOMMY
(2019, Wedge)



"Like I said, I don't really fit into this world. Misunderstood. So I pushed my own mind at telling my story; and then at the end, I'll be saying goodbye."

A down-on-his-luck detective is hired by a Queen to find her husband and baby, but shady elements threaten his mission. Think you've seen this story done before? Well, think again, cause writer and director Jack Wedge takes that story and grinds it through an acid-trip kaleidoscope of color, noir-ish vibes, and bizarre CGI animation.

Goodbye Mommy is the third short film from Wedge, whose father Chris achieved fame by directing the first Ice Age film and for voicing the ill-fated squirrel Scrat all through the franchise. But the apple couldn't have fallen further from the tree, at least in terms of style. This short film is a dizzying and disorienting experience, not only because of the way the camera frantically moves around the environment, but also because of how convoluted the story is.

But to be clear, I don't mean any of that in a bad way. There is a hypnotizing quality to it that doesn't let you look away, and there is a certain melancholy to the way the story unfolds, even if you're not really sure what is happening. The lead detective (voiced by Chris Wedge) feels misunderstood and like he "doesn't really fit into this world", but much like this short film, this job will turn out to be not what he (or us!) expected.

Grade:



NU
(2003, Staho)



"What we do *now* echoes in eternity" --Marcus Aurelius

Tough to pick a quote when a short film is entirely silent. Still, that quote from Roman emperor came to mind as I was thinking about this. I doubt it is what director and co-writer Simon Staho had in mind when writing and filming it, or choosing a title, but it is what kept coming back to me. The choices we make *now* will undoubtedly have repercussions, one way or the other, in our future and other people's future.

Now follows a man, Jakob (Mads Mikkelsen), making one of those choices when he marries Lisa (Elin Klinga). The thing is that Jakob eventually develops affections for someone else, Adam (Mikael Persbrandt), which maybe means that Jakob's choice was made for "now"; perhaps to please those around him, but not realizing that what he did *now* will echo into eternity.

There are some striking visuals and some powerful elements in this short film. However, the cold and distant direction doesn't really leave much space for a connection. Mikkelsen is great, which is a lot for a role that has no dialogue and demands a mostly stoic and emotionless performance. I just wish there could've been more for me to latch on to and give more weight to the powerful elements.

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NIGHT AND FOG
(1956, Resnais)



"Death makes its first choice. The second one is made on arrival in night and fog."

Night and Fog is a documentary that chronicles many of the events that happened at Nazi concentration camps during The Holocaust. Starting with the rise of Nazi ideology, the documentary offers details of how Jewish people were transported and led into camps, how they carried on their daily lives while imprisoned, and how they were treated, tortured, tested on, and eventually executed.

It is hard to write about this documentary from a filmmaking standpoint and not detour into the events it portrays. Resnais intercalates "modern" footage of the ruins of camps like Auschwitz and Majdanek, with stock footage taken during the Holocaust. The narration by Michel Bouquet offers a somber and melancholic account of the events. It is indeed a neatly constructed documentary.

But it is hard to write about this documentary and not detour into what it portrays. I consider myself a World War II buff, and I've seen dozens of photographs, videos, and documentaries about it and the Holocaust. Some are seen here, some are not. But even with those that I've seen, it never fails to crush my soul to see the utter disregard of humanity by those that perpetrated these crimes.

It's hard to imagine how something as horrible as this could be conceived, thought of, planned, put in motion, and carried on for years. It's hard to think how one would react if faced with these atrocities; to know that death can creep up in the darkness of night and responsibilities hidden under the cover of fog.

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Just want to let you all know that I put Hedgehog in the Fog to my kids. Older one fell asleep (it was right before bedtime), but younger one saw it all through and seemed to be very much into it. Said it was a bit scary, but he wanted to see "another one" to see what happens with the horse