Oscars in Black and White

The Nominations:

• Best Short Film, Animated

The Black-and-White:

A review by spacedcowboy:

This year I am thankful for many things. Among these is my discovery and appreciation for this category: Short Film, Animated. Some of the best work I’ve seen for some time is being done here. As a dear friend helped me understand, the genre enjoys the larger freedom than a real-action film allows, and simultaneously challenges the viewer to embark on a complete story in 40 minutes, including credits, or less. In most cases, the run time is much less – more like 10 minutes or so – a manageable period of wonder to incorporate into your life on any given day.

Head of Heels in wonderful.

The plot synopsis from headoverheelsfilm.com:

After many years of marriage, Walter and Madge have grown apart: he lives on the floor and she lives on the ceiling. They live separate, parallel lives, never talking, barely even looking at each other. When Walter tries to reignite their old romance, it brings their equilibrium crashing down, and the couple that can’t agree which way is up must find a way to put their marriage back together.
HEAD OVER HEELS is a stop-motion animated short film written and directed by Timothy Reckart at the National Film and Television School. A team of eleven students made the film over the course of 15 months.

Animation allows an added dimension to story-telling, allowing the use of devices not easy to introduce into live-action films. I think that is why, year after year, my heart has resonated with animated films.

In Heads Over Heels, a world is literally turned upside down. A man lives on the ceiling; a woman on the floor. Sharing the same space, as many couples do, they live together and yet completely apart.

Metaphors abound in this delightful film.

Drifting in the sky, their house tumbles and turns. However when a moment of discord arises, the house plummets to earth, leaving Madge forever on the ground, with Walter in the air.

Moments of discovery, rediscovery, longing, and love follow.

I applaud Timothy Reckart – a brilliant young film-maker – for his vision to tell complex story, with so many levels. I cannot fully recount the dimensions of his wonderful vision here. It is a story of love, of loss, of discord, of dreams, of reaching out, of rejection, of despair, of longing, of determination, of connection and of finding a middle ground. All in 10 minutes and 27 seconds.

Suffice it to say, he fully exploited the parameters that animation allow, and told a complex, wonderful, and visually interesting multilayered story.

With no dialog.

Bravo.

To me, this is the epitome of an animated short, and a story for all-time. Oscar, meet Timothy.