Dark-horse pick for Best Animated Feature: Claude Barras' MY LIFE AS A ZUCCHINI

Once in awhile, amidst the Oscar-nominated. blockbuster animation movies from the big studios, can be found a small, foreign gem. So it is again this year, with the nomination of MY LIFE AS A ZUCCHINI, the Swiss film directed by Claude Barras, with a screenplay co-written by that wonderful French filmmaker Céline Sciamma. The unusual thing this year, regarding the nominations for Best Animated Feature Film, is that three of the five movies are of this smaller variety: what you might call animated "art" films.

Kubo and the Two Strings is a simply gorgeous, rapturous piece of animation, in which, unfortunately, the vivid style is undercut by the film's somewhat meagre and occasionally clichéd content. I have not seen the other smaller film, The Red Turtle, nor have I watched Disney's nod to feminism, Moana, but I found its Zootopia one of the wittiest and non-stop enjoyable mainstream animation endeavors I've yet viewed -- with a much-needed message about equality and opportunity to impart to this dreadful Trump time, as well.

But back to that Zucchini:  M. Barras' fine accomplishment (the filmmaker is shown above) in this little delight of claymation animation is to turn the usual clichés of the tale of the orphans' life on their head so that we see things in quite a different manner.  Instead of an uncaring bureaucracy that shovels those "wards of the state" into dreary, unpleasant circumstances, here it is the caretakers of the orphans who care the most -- from the head of the orphanage and its workers to the kindly policeman (below, right) who is the first responder on the scene of the accident that renders our little hero, known as Zucchini, an orphan.

Indeed, it is an actual blood relative of another of the orphans who proves the film's major villainess. Oliver Twist (in any of its many incarnations), this ain't. As seems more and more true with each passing year, the wonders that can be done with animated characters to make them emotionally galvanizing are put to amazing use here. Barras' claymation effects are alternately moving and quite funny -- and always richly rendered.

The story tacks our hero's life once his alcoholic mother dies and he is placed in the care of that orphanage, among a small group of children, each of whom is rendered with fine specificity and individuality. Zucchini himself (above) is a lovely creation, as is the young orphan girl, Camille (below, left), who soon joins the crew.

But is is the not-so-typical bully, Simon (below), who quietly and gently takes over as the most special and interesting character. Here, too, Barras and Sciamma upend the usual clichés to create a young boy who will move you beyond expectation.

Kindness and generosity seem in such short supply these days that My Life as a Zucchini immediately takes its place as an arbiter of what might occur, should government begin to wisely and kindly care for its citizens. As seen here, Switzerland seems like some sort of heaven. And the USA? Well, we can dream, can't we?

The movie, distributed by GKIDS in both its original French language with English subtitles and a new (and very good) dubbed-in-English version, runs just 67 minutes. It opens this Friday, February 24, in New York City and the Landmark Sunshine Cinema, in Los Angeles at the Landmark NuArt, and in Vancouver at the Vancity Theater. In the weeks to come it will hit cities all across the country. To view the many currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters listed, click here and scroll down.

Short Film Oscar Nominees, 2015: The five animated short films open theatrically tomorrow

It's always a treat to see the short films -- animated, live-action narrative and live-action documentary -- that have garnered Oscar nominations, and this year is no different. Featuring the best in short films from around the world, these three programs offer a quality level that is almost always top-notch. For the past decade, these shorts have been receiving a theatrical release prior to the Oscars ceremony, and this year they open tomorrow, January 30, in theaters across the country (click here to see the complete list of cities and theaters).

Below are the five nominees for the short animated film award, with their statistics and content information followed by TrustMovies' brief opinion in italics. I'll finish watching the complete three series soon, and my take on the other two -- live action narrative and documentary shorts -- will quickly follow.

A SINGLE LIFE,   The Netherlands / 2 mins.  
Production: Job, Joris & Marieke 
When playing a mysterious vinyl single, Pia is suddenly able to travel through her life.

Brevity is not just the soul of wit; here it's the soul of animation, too. In just a couple of minutes, this Dutch wonder packs in an entire life and a ton of humor -- even if it is a bit dark. A Single Life is a sensational treat: fast, funny and amazing. That it is so brief, as well, just makes it all the more wonderful.

FEAST,  USA / 6 mins.  
Director: Patrick Osborne;  Producer: Kristina Reed 
A new short from first-time director Patrick Osborne (Head of Animation, “PAPERMAN”) and Walt Disney Animation Studios, Feast is the story of one man’s love life as seen through the eyes of his best friend and dog, Winston, and revealed bite by bite through the meals they share.

Disney's latest tackles the eating habits of a new puppy in a manner that is by now standard for this acclaimed studio. In other words it's a sentimental delight -- full of the usual anthropomorphization of animals, some first-rate animation, a ton of charm and, yes, just a little predictability, too.

ME AND MY MOULTON,  Canada & Norway / 14 mins.  
Director: Torill Kove;  Producers: Lise Fearnley, Marcy Page;  
Production: Mikrofilm AS, in co-production with 
the National Film Board of Canada
One summer in mid-’60s Norway, a seven-year-old girl asks her parents if she and her sisters can have a bicycle. Me and My Moulton provides a glimpse of its young protagonist’s thoughts as she struggles with her sense that her family is a little out of sync with what she perceives as “normal”.

Normality, and the need for this among children, is front and center in this Norwegian/Canadian co-production. Narrated by a "middle child," the short is full of envy and "otherness" and is probably the deepest of all the films, if not the lengthiest. It's bright and smart and funny, as it takes us to a place that most of us have been -- but probably not in such an intelligent and clever fashion.  

THE BIGGER PICTURE,  UK / 7 mins. 
Director: Daisy Jacobs;  Producer: Christopher Hees
'You want to put her in a home; you tell her. Tell her now!' hisses one brother to the other. But Mother won't go, and their own lives unravel as she clings on. Innovative life-size animated characters tell the stark and darkly humorous tale of caring for an elderly parent.

The darkest of the animated shorts, The Bigger Picture also offers the most innovative blend of animation, as well as the angriest of protagonists. These brothers have (and want to continue) their own lives despite their mother's progress toward dementia and death. It's all told with black humor, anger, and not a little sadness. Excellent.

THE DAM KEEPER,  USA / 18 mins.  
Directors: Robert Kondo and Dice Tsutsumi;  
Production: Tonko House
Telling the tale of a young pig encumbered with an important job, and the meeting of a new classmate who changes everything, The Dam Keeper is a first-time collaboration between some of the most talented artists in animation and made its world premiere as an official selection at the 2014 Berlin International Film Festival and is slated to make its US premiere at The New York International Children's Film Festival this spring. Made up of over 8,000 paintings, the film blends traditional hand-drawn animation with lush brush strokes. Danish actor Lars Mikkelsen of television's Forbrydelsen (The Killing) and BBC's Sherlock, narrates.

The most painterly of all the shorts film, this little gem stars a pig as its somewhat compromised hero, with a menagerie of other animals in the supporting roles. The theme here is -- among other things -- bullying, and how the filmmakers combine this with their tale of an unexpected friendship leads to something quite different. As lovely as the film is, an ineffable sadness seems to hang over it. Expect to talk to your children for awhile, post viewing.  

Because the program of these five nominated films is so short (around 48 minutes), I believe that the program will include a few other of the shortlisted shorts, bring the total running time to around 75 minutes. In any case, I've seen the other shorts, and while they, too, are good, I think the Academy, in this case, chose wisely regarding these five nominees.

Fernando Trueba's & Javier Mariscal's CHICO & RITA opens theatrically--at last

Three years ago during Spanish Cinema Now, TrustMovies found himself bemoaning the contribution of Fernando Trueba, a piece of high-toned twaddle called The Dancer and the Thief.  While he doesn't take back his dislike of that earlier film (gorgeous to view though it often was), he's delighted to be able to embrace Trueba's newer work, CHICO & RITA, an animated collabor-ation that the Oscar-wining director has created with the enormous contribution of designer/graphic artist Javier Mariscal -- which made is debut at Spanish Cinema Now the following year. Old-fashioned in the dearest of ways -- in its animation, characters, love story, music -- yet using, I think, some quite modern techniques (notice, two photos down, how sunlight streams into the room through the open, wooden window slats), the film provides 94 minutes of near-non-stop enchantment. Along with some wonderful music.

At the SCN press conference held at Instituto Cervantes the day before this series began, Trueba (shown above, left) explained that the real reason he wanted to do this film was to be able to work with and show off the art of Mariscal (above, right). Smart move. I'm not sure who did what (well, Mariscal certainly provided the artwork) but the collaboration comes off seamlessly.

A memory piece -- the fuse of which is lit by a song heard on the radio -- Chico & Rita takes our hero, a now elderly Chico, back to the 1940s when he was a hot young man and a very good piano player ("The best!" his agent/partner exclaims) and he first heard the sexy Rita sing Bésame Mucho. It's love at first sight & sound -- at least on Chico's part -- but being a man, he screws things up. Repeatedly. Rita takes a bit longer to give in, but once she gives, she never takes back.

Their love story -- simple, sweet, sour, and, yes, clichéd (but given the sensuous animation and music, those clichés goes down awfully easily) -- spans continents and hemispheres as the lovers connect, part, reconnect, part and... well, you get the point.

Along the way, we see pre-Castro Cuba in all its tawdry glory (there's even a car chase, or a car/motorcycle-cum-side-car chase, to be exact), and we move from the warm and languid island (below) to New York City in wintertime, two photos down -- the first sight of its neon lights is memorable one -- where Rita finds a new career and life.

While the animation seems relatively simple "line" style, with colors that are rich, bright and saturated, if I am not mistaken, Mariscal and Trueba use some modern effects, too: maybe just a bit of the "wavy" line effect we saw put to use in Linklater's Waking Life.

The movie seems relatively apolitical, as well, which may be a problem for some viewers. Though we 're made aware of the light-skin/dark skin color line that existed in Batista's time, we're also privy to how jazz became "the enemies' music" in the Castro era. Artists want their own kind of freedom, and this movie makes clear that they weren't exactly getting it, come the Revolution -- as most Cuban homosexuals of the period would also have declared.

You might want more from Chico & Rita, but -- for those of us of a certain age, at least -- there's plenty already in which we can bask. After its two Spanish Cinema Now showings, various festival successes, and its critical success in Britain (it was released in Spain only last February), it is finally getting a deserved theatrical release here in the USA, along with a nod from our motion picture academy as one of the five nominations for Best Animated Film. It opens this Friday, February 10, at New York's Angelika Film Center, with limited nationwide release to follow.

Art About Art: Moore/Twomey's surprise Academy pick THE SECRET OF KELLS opens

Standing tall next to Disney, Pixar, Focus and Fox is now GKIDS.tv with a film that is surely the surprise nomination of the year: THE SECRET OF KELLS, an animated narra-
tive movie from director/story guy Tomm Moore (shown below), co-director Nora Twomey and screenwriter Fabrice Ziolkowsky. Done in what TrustMovies calls old-fashioned flat, colorful, highly stylized animated line drawing (supplemented, according to the director's statement, by some computer anima-
tion), the film probably cost what Pixar pays for its press materials.  And yet so rich in story, ideas, and beauty is this little 75-minute film that it certainly gives the other nominees a run for their money. So far as simplicity is concerned, it wipes the floor with them.

The Secret of Kells combines Celtic mythology, an illuminated manuscript, history and magic into a kid's adventure tale that is short on dialog and explanation but long on lovely visuals.  I found this enchanting and often gripping but I do wonder what young kids will make of it.  Will they "get" it?  Probably not completely, but they should understand enough to carry them along and then use their own imagination to complete the parts of the tale they may not fully comprehend.

The movie takes place in a multi-cultural, multi-colored monastery in which the abbot is having constructed a huge wall to protect his flock and the locals from marauding Vikings.  His nephew (and our hero) little Brendan becomes involved with a master "illuminator," who, with his cat, has come to take shelter in the Abbey.  As Brendan learns about illumination and drawing, he also visits the forbidden forest outside the abbey where he meets a strange and magical little girl and her wolf pack.  Complications ensue.

The animation -- all of it wonderful -- ranges from frightening and awesome (lots of red and black and jagged edges) during the siege, to bright and earthy-colors when the environment is front and center (below), to the highly geometrical (further below) when magic -- and art -- are needed.  All the while, color choices are vital, as is the abstract style necessary to give the proper tone to the various scenes and their differing moods.

The movie finally offers a very smart mix of adventure, scares (which most young kids love), fantasy and magic (also high on their list) -- and art.  In fact the movie succeeds in being art about art: acquainting its viewers with the beauty of illuminated manuscripts in a manner that I suspect may stick with them for life.  On one level the "secret" of kells has to do with myth and magic.  On another, that secret is simply the importance of art to our individual lives and to the life of the world.

The Secret of Kells open Friday in New York City at the IFC Center and will open in Boston and Philadelphia on March 19th. A nationwide roll-out will follow, beginning April 2.