2025 Oscar-Nominated Shorts - Animation

Tropic Sprockets by Ian Brockway

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The Animation category is unique. Animation is varied and tends to be unrestrained by plot or narrative, unlike the live action or documentary group. The animator can defy the usual script laws of exposition, time or setting. This year is no exception. The only marked departure in 2025 is that this selection is remarkably serious and matter of fact with only a few chuckles and adorable sights.

First, Japan is most traditional starting things off in a lighthearted tone with “Magic Candies” directed by Daisuke Nishio. A young boy sees some marbles and he collects them. As it turns out they are sweet candies. Putting one in his mouth, the boy realizes he can talk to all kind of things around his room: animals and inanimate objects or even his father‘s beard. 

The boy discovers that both his sofa and his dog converse with him as his old friends and he learns the importance of shared closeness. Lightness and positivity reign.

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Next from Iran is “In the Shadow of the Cypress” by Hossein Molayemi and Shirin Sohani, a tale of struggle beautifully rendered. A man encounters a beached whale. His wife is devastated. The couple tries to free the whale, but they are unsuccessful. The aging husband begins a dream like exploration of guilt and memory recounting segments from his life. At times he is violent, at times he is contrite. Anger and fury rise to the fore. The man copes with a sinking ship. The sea rises and the man is presumably free of his guilt, but his wife becomes spectral and ghostly. 

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France is the outlier of the bunch that remains irrepressibly colorful and buoyant. From Loïc Espuche, “Yuck!” highlights grade school children spying on people kissing. One child in particular is revolted the most, only to get the urge later. Charming, colorful and laugh out loud funny, this film is a singular joy with elements of Pop Art, disco and surrealism.

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Now for something disturbing. By Nina Ganz “Wander to Wonder” illustrates a family in Norway, living (one might think underground) in a setting of filth, darkness, and decay. An old woman and a man watch archaic video cassettes of each other as childish teddy bears, while they also wander around nude in garbage, eating rotten food and reciting Shakespeare. At one point, the woman coughs, nearly vomiting while the older man kills a bird and drinks its blood. “120 Days of Sodom” by Pasolini, eat your heart out! This film is slow, sad, and hard on the eyes, but for those that enjoy their animation especially dismal, dark and dim, do not miss it.

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Finally, from Norway and directed by Nicolas Keppens’s “Beautiful Men” focuses on three middle-aged men searching for hair transplants. One of the men notices a lump on his genitals and thinks he has testicular cancer. A girlfriend on the phone plays hard to get and the man is left alone for most of the film, with his phone in one hand and his genitals in the other. Existentialism is the order of the day. If Ricky Gervais had made a film with Jean-Luc Godard, this would be it.

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Lugubrious and melancholy with two exceptions, these films are sure to provoke if not to please. 

Write Ian at ianfree11@yahoo.com