Cinema Tuesdays Review

Award Winning Short Films Available on DVD
By Nathan Cone

One of the questions I am frequently asked by our Cinema Tuesdays moviegoers is, "Where can I find the Academy Award-nominated short films on DVD?" Usually, the answer is you cannot, but I'm happy to report that the 2004 Animated Short Film winner, "Ryan," is now available on a DVD from distributor Passion River that also includes "Hardwood," a powerful father-and-son story, Academy-Award nominated in the Best Documentary Short category (2004), and "Sunrise Over Tiananmen Square," nominated in the same category in 1998.

Hubert Davis,  director of the Academy Award- nominated "Hardwood," spoke  recently to Texas Public Radio's Nathan Cone about his film.  Listen online to the interview or get the Cinema Tuesdays podcast to hear it on your MP3 player.

Hubert Davis' "Hardwood" started out as a documentary about his father, Mel, who played with the Harlem Globetrotters in the 1960s and '70s, but Davis soon found that "I couldn't tell his story without telling my own, [and] I couldn't tell my own story without telling my family's." The film is a documentary of a family reunion of sorts, as family members reflect on their lives together, and apart. You see, Mel Davis fathered Hubert with a white woman in the 1960s, and later married another woman, with whom he had another son. The two brothers would not meet for years, but when they did, there was an immediate familial connection. And while Hubert and his brother still remember the times when Mel Davis was absentee, or abusive, Mel has apparently made amends with his sons, and the film ends on a note of reconciliation. "Hardwood" contains some genuinely touching moments, and emphasizes a father's importance in his child's life. (NOTE: "Hardwood" is scheduled to be shown on PBS in September, 2006.)

"Ryan," by engineer-turned-animator Chris Landreth, is also a documentary, even though it won an Oscar in the Animated Short category. Landreth set out to find the pioneering Canadian animator Ryan Larkin, nominated for an Oscar himself in the late 1960s. Larkin had been inactive for years, and Landreth discovered him on welfare, panhandling for spare change in Montreal. In the 13-minute film, we hear from Larkin and Landreth, as well as people who knew Larkin well. Larkin's story is a sad one of family tragedy, missed or passed opportunities, and substance abuse. As a fellow animator, Landreth also hints that his own life may have turned out the same way, there but for the grace of God.

The movie is computer animated, and the figures in "Ryan" are remarkably surreal, with distorted faces, hollow arms, or even missing bodies. Life has beaten them down, and literally taken pieces of them away. This leads to a remarkable visual sequence when Ryan touches the hand of his former love, and as the memories come flooding back, so does his body, for a few seconds at least. But then later, he's back on the street, begging for change with a weird gracefulness.

The third film on the disc, "Sunrise Over Tiananmen Square," is an autobiographical film from artist Shui-Bo Wang told entirely through manipulated still photos and voice-over narration. Wang talks about his childhood, growing up in China, idolizing Chariman Mao, and believing the West was full of starving children, thanks to Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Match Girl, the only piece of Western literature allowed in his school. But like China itself, Wang's dogmatic belief in communism is slowly chipped away by all manner of outside influences: Buddhism, Western art, a wife that studied French literature, and the massacre at Tiananmen Square in 1989. Despite the static nature of much of the images on screen, Wang's story is a fascinating glimpse into the personal world of a man struggling to reconcile past ideologies with the world of the present.

In short (no pun intended), it's a pleasure to have these three films on one DVD. Each year, audiences are stumped during the Oscar telecast when they try to guess which film is going to win in the "Short Film" categories. Passion River's release of these Academy Award Nominees on DVD is welcomed, so put this one on your short list. And THAT pun was intended.

3/23/06

Back to the main Cinema Tuesdays Reviews page

More about the Cinema Tuesdays series