Oscar Bait Animation: Who Knew?
This year’s biggest Oscar disappointment was in one of the tragically less recognized categories.
The 2022 Oscars was one for the cinephiles. Prestige dramas duked it out against mega million blockbusters. CGI laden films with visuals beyond falsified yet more immersive than reality itself were put on the same stage as a one room test of audience endurance. Diversity was plentiful, and the quality was more so…for the most part.
A poisonous drop was diluted in the sea of masterpieces at this year's celebration with “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse” winning best animated short. While it is possible the animation is enticing for some, I find it difficult to believe the remainder of the bloated 34 minute runtime held anything of value for legible audiences, as this short film is a children’s book brought to the silver screen to insultingly simplistic results.
With the subtlety of a bellowing ice storm, “The Boy, The Mole, The Fox, and The Horse” preaches and preaches until it has lost the will to do so, just as the audience will likely lose the will to continue watching. The film opens with the ever iconic “boy” wandering a frozen wasteland. He’s lost, that is, until a cozy companion sprouts from the snow in the form of a mole, and immediately the film’s painful dedication to wholesomeness begins its all destructive path on the film’s enjoyability.
The mole offers his aid in finding the boy a home. However, despite being the only short film outside of “My Year of Dicks” to have a defined goal for their protagonist, the project is the most meandering and unfocused. At the time of writing, I have trouble remembering what exactly took place in this so-called “short” film, just as I did walking out of the theater. Minutes upon minutes are wasted on characters speaking in anecdotes and lessons, spewing overly sentimental messages of life, love and meaning so vague as to be void of any meaning at all. The boy and the mole save the fox from a trap. Cut to the boy and the mole sitting on a branch. “What makes you the most afraid?” asks the mole. “Why?” I ask back. The connections between scenes, even lines of dialogue, follow an impossible line of logic led by an effort to cram as many faux-enlightening statements as possible into a single project. The result is an overt effort at sincerity that boils over into contrivance. There is no sensible narrative, there is no defining character, there is no conflict; there are only four mouthpieces navigating a blank landscape while they speak of everything and nothing all at once. Worse yet, the performers do so in a form of dialogue so painfully sculpted towards children with its soft intonation and extreme innocence that it would burn Mr. Rogers’ ears for its explicit disingenuousness.
And yet, it was my number one prediction for what would steal the title of “best animated picture” from the deserving project, “Ice Merchants;” the reason being quite ironic for a celebration of cinema that, for once, was seemingly in line with audiences. Being produced by Apple TV and helmed by J.J. Abrams with acting talent such as Idris Elba, “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse,” paired with its childlike cheesiness, introduced me to the concept of Oscar bait short films. It was the safest pick in a selection of shorts many claim are of the highest quality we’ve seen in years. The comedy of “My Year of Dicks,” the existential capitalist critique as expressed through claymation in “An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe it,” the ingenuity of “A Flying Sailor;” any of these shorts could, and should, have been a given for the award. However, what makes this year's selection all the more insulting is the fact that “Ice Merchants” exists.
The opening scene is the definition of an attention grabber. Contrast the gray void the boy, mole and so on explored with the vibrant red, pencil sketched mountain side, and one could already predict which short should be crowned as “the best”. The film then goes on to embody every aspect of what makes a great animated short: no dialogue, expression through unique visuals, and the invocation of powerful emotion. In less than half the time, “Ice Merchants” genuinely immersed me. I laughed at the visual gags just as much as I cried at the ending, to which there was also an equivalent level of awe at the opening skydive scene. Only a minute into the runtime and I was already participating in an act “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse” could only hope to motivate within me: I was smiling. I was excited. I was engaged. The complex beauty of shifting perspectives as the father and son skydive to the valley below was as impressive as the film's ability to have two silent characters provoke tears in the eyes of a writer who has spent the past page attacking sincerity. I may be a scrooge, but “Ice Merchants” has the power to change a man.
And that is why the winner is so disappointing. In perhaps one of the greatest years ever for film, where the Academy uncharacteristically made selections that satisfied audiences, there is still a hearth of that soulless flame that fuels the award show. I would go as far to say “Ice Merchants” is a demonstration of a perfect short film, with the other nominees trailing close behind. Any of the best animated shorts were deserving of the award due to their experimentation and quality, all except the winner. That is a pattern this years Oscar’s nearly escaped, but once again found themselves inextricably linked to. This selection, much like the short itself, is an unsubtle declaration: they can’t all be winners.