Oscar Live Action: whimsy over message, please

This year’s offering of Oscar Short Live Action films suffers from one big word: four of the five are MESSAGE films. Whatever happened to comedy, whimsy or indeed straight narrative about someone or something, without the drift into moral statement? Methinks the crop of young filmmakers has grown up believing the only way to make films is with a message. Of course, I imagine few people (necessarily) dislike messages, but after a while, like anything else, the brain tunes out. Moreover, this year’s crop of films has messages with an obvious down or depressing quality.…. After the terrible Parkland Fla. school shooting last week one wonders if the first of these films, Reed Van Dyk’s Dekalb Elementary’s (USA, 20 mins), chances of winning will rise. The film is based on a true incident that took place in Atlanta. A youth with mental issues walks into the school carrying an assault rifle. The school secretary tries to calm him. No bullets are fired inside the school, but a few shots are directed at police. Yet there are a couple of scenes that don’t seem believable – when he leaves the office and the secretary doesn’t run for help, and the length of time it takes for police to reach the office after the attacker given up…….Kevin Wilson Jr.’s My Nephew Emmett (USA, 20 mins), tells the story of the well-known 1950s death of Emmett Till, the Chicago teen who is visiting his family in the South, flirts with a white woman, and pays the consequences by being murdered. The acting is good with slowly and subtly rising drama. The film also tells the “inside” story from Till’s family’s perspective. But this is a message movie in a year when the genre is overdone……The Eleven O’clock (Derin Seale, Australia, 13 mins, pictured) is my choice for Oscar. Why? Because it departs so refreshingly from the other entries. It’s not just a comedy but, in the best shorts tradition, deftly constructs a mind-bending plot twist that will make you rethink your previous judgements…..The Silent Child (Chris Overton, UK, 20 mins) is a very well-acted film that, while carrying a message, is heartfelt and broaches a subject that receives not enough attention – deaf children and how they should be properly educated, apparently as overwhelming form of neglect. Rachel Shenton, who wrote the screen play, is especially good as a caring but astute social worker……Finally, Watu Wote/All of Us (Katja Benrath, Germany & Kenya, 23 mins), is the most on-the-edge-of-your-seat drama of all the films. It depicts an almost day long bus ride through some of Kenya’s most remote and terrorist-infested areas. The story culminates in an event after which one of the passengers, skeptical of another religion, is protected by those religion’s adherents. Despite the film’s obvious acting and directing merits, the message is ultimately predictable.

(Oscar nominations for Short Live Action films will again be screened this weekend at the Detroit Film Theatre at the Detroit Institute of Arts.)