Decade Week: The Top Ten Shorts
How much can you say in a short amount of time? Well, with three definitive types of short films (live action, animated, and documentary), there are many ways that this generation’s strongest filmmakers can boil down huge statements with very little. Subjecting this list of ten to all types of short films feels incredibly unfair, because each type has a different motive and varying approaches. Alas, here we are. If I had to learn anything from the best short films of the decade, it’s how to be concise and bring the most out of the least amount. So, this means cutting many variants (limiting the list to only one Disney short, for instance, or having to ditch some of my favourite advertisement features like David Lynch’s Lady Blue Shanghai for Dior).
I also have to be honest. This list may be zeroed in on some of the more obvious, well known examples, because shorts come from every corner of the globe. I would like to partake in every short festival to see all of the works that don’t get their grasp on the speeding train of an awards season for the world to see. It just isn’t feasible. Nonetheless, I still have many honourable mentions I had to cut just to get to these ten films. These are ten works that knew how to use their time to their fullest. They know the barest of essences of story telling, in order to command us right away. Here are the ten best short films of the decade.
10. Fresh Guacamole
On a first glance, Fresh Guacamole is just a satisfying experience that barely exists; its minute-and-a-half runtime will forever stick with you. Seeing everyday objects turned into sliced and diced ingredients for guacamole is so much fun. Adam Pesapane’s imagination seems endless, as his Western Spaghetti series has branched out past this one single entry. But, it’s Fresh Guacamole that feels the strongest, and the viral-ability of the short through social media (mostly in GIF format) seems to prove that notion. The film works, because of its gifted animation and sound editing. With the attached noises, these images come to life, and you’ll almost feel like eating the provided dish of dice, Monopoly houses, and broken poker chips.
9. The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life
The older you get, the more you realize just how special the stories of your elders are. You’re experiencing the lives of those that came before you, and their willingness to share what they went through to the next generation. In The Lady in Number 6, we have forty minutes to sit down with Alice Herz-Sommer: a holocaust survivor that was interviewed at the age of 110. At that age, the world was starkly different when Herz-Sommer was a child, even excluding the second World War: the way she discusses classical music is as if we were transported to a different time. Then, we embrace how Herz-Sommer utilized music to escape the darkest periods of modern history. The back-and-forth between her passion for classical compositions, and the horrors that she had to face, is an exercise that is challenging, and fulfilling, to watch.
8. The Phone Call
One can only imagine the difficulties of saving face at a crisis call centre. The Phone Call gives us one such instance, where a hotline employee receives the most challenging call she has ever had to endure. A man is fighting with himself to stop killing himself after the death of his wife, and the phone counsellor has to try her best to persuade him to stop. Between the minimalist direction by Mat Kirkby, and the acting interplay between an on-screen Sally Hawkins and an off-screen Jim Broadbent, The Phone Call is all about understanding the importance of voices and speaking out. In a decade where mental health awareness is getting the kind of attention it deserves, a film like The Phone Call may be hard to watch for some viewers. Nonetheless, it is an important dialogue, and it is kept to two people, as to allow the healing power of reaching out (either discussing your own health, or listening to others detail theirs) to take the reins.
7. Day & Night
Picking just one Disney/Pixar short was exceptionally hard. Do we go with the photo realistic Piper? The sweet and precise Feast? The culturally rich Bao? The romantic Paperman?If we could, we would make an entry for just all of the Disney shorts (or, one day we can even rank them all). Picking one was rough. We went with Day & Night: the most imaginative short the studio pumped out this decade. Showcasing the need for both times of the day to coexist (as well as the bad times to allow for the good to exist at all), Day & Night is the reminder that labeling disallows exceptions. The 2D animation on top of the 3D backdrops creates some gorgeous imagery that is sure to melt your mind. we picked Day & Night, because it’s what Disney and Pixar do best, as well as being the kind of creation that can only exist in an animated short form.
6. The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom
There is a Japanese philosophy called kintsugi: the belief that the repairs of a broken object becomes art, through the new life of said object. After the 2011 earthquake and tsunami destroyed much of the region of Tōhoku, many citizens were forced to live with the biggest losses of their lives: cherished possessions, houses, and even loved ones. The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom is Lucy Walker’s offering to the grieving in the form of kintsugi. It operates partially as a confessional, for interviewees to open up and discuss their hardships. However, part of the film focuses on the notion of cherry blossom trees, and how the season for these trees helps people reflect on their dearly departed. These trees couldn’t have come at a better time, and The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom captures this healing process through and through.
5. Logorama
Picture this: a world where everything —living or not — is based on an already existing logo from our universe. Logorama brings that concept to life, in what feels like a Grand Theft Auto style. Characters are rude and vulgar. There is much violence. Cities are congested. Logorama is the defacing of all of these branded images that companies invest millions of dollars into so they can sell themselves to the unsuspecting public. Part of this short is a high-speed chase between Michelin Men police officers, and a fugitive Ronald McDonald (yes, this is a real film). The final five minutes is a meta reminder that corporations can cave in on themselves, maybe even at the hands of other corporations. Released in Cannes in 2009, but to the world in early 2010 (thanks, loopholes), Logorama is as brilliantly creative as it is incredibly juvenile. This exception works, because every logo is used well, and gets resorted to absolute filth. It’s a great deconstruction.
4. Day One
There’s no easy way to dive into Henry Hughes’ powerful, political live action short. Day One is aptly named, because it details the first day on the job for a military interpreter. Within twenty four hours, she faces the challenge of experiencing cultural shifts, when a bomb-maker’s wife goes into labour, and religious customs restricts many possible decisions. Meanwhile, this translator also has to make her own decisions: does she help the enemy when it comes to dealing with new life? Day One is a polarizing watch, and I can see why. It presents a plethora of difficult conversations to ingest within twenty five minutes, but that’s kind of the idea: what do you do on the spot when it comes to questioning ethics? Day One is anything but easy, which means it’s also completely compelling despite its testing.
3. I'm Here
What I love about Spike Jonze, is that you feel compelled to finish any of his works simply by the design of his projects alone. Right away, I’m Here is a hazy-eyed short where robots live amongst the humans, and are forced to deal with some societal rules (including the inability to legally operate vehicles). I’m Here is a love story between two androids (one a boxy computer-looking being, and the other a smoother newer prototype). As the short progresses, I’m Here is all about existential crises mixed with self sacrifices. We doubt our own existences, but are happy to offer parts of ourselves to loved ones. We exist less, and they exist more. It’s a bittersweet trade off that occurs with the best of intentions. I’m Here starts off sweet, and ends off with your heart aching.
2. A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness
Within such a short amount of time, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s documentary short will have you seething with anger. A Girl in the River is a bold project that sheds light on the survivor of an honour killing in Pakistan, who is now forced to forgive her own father and uncle that attempted to murder her. You get all sides of the story (yes, even including the perspectives of her father and uncle), and see how an entire community is pushing a girl granted the miracle of survival into facing her biggest demons. One of the most difficult documentaries of the last ten years, A Girl in the River sounds absolutely unfathomable on paper. It’s only when you watch it that you understand how very real this is. Actually, you’ll figure out more: this is only one case of its kind. A Girl in the River is almost impossible to wrap your head around, but its existence is imperative.
1. World of Tomorrow
Don Hertzfeldt is an artistic bridge between the philosophical and the insane. His works have won audiences before, including his previous short Rejected (an early example of a viral, downloadable meme in the early 2000s). World of Tomorrow is beyond just a silly, quirky animated short (well, it is that as well). It is oddly deep enough to feel like this generation’s La Jetée: a brief time capsule sent from the future, in the form of an experimental short. As funny as World of Tomorrow can be (and it’s absolutely hilarious), it also remains deeply saddening, knowing that this future form of a young girl is sending a message backwards, and detailing the grim years that lie ahead.
The receiver (a child) cannot fully comprehend the messages given to her (the child’s voice comes from Hertzfeldt’s niece playing and being recorded: her nonsensical ramblings all get integrated somehow). You begin the short excited, and finish the short feeling just like Emily Prime: lost in the cold wasteland of nothingness. The future is so infinite, and yet it resorts us to even less than we once were. World of Tomorrow is the best short of the decade, because it batters all of its constrictions. The simple animation still feels monumental. The short time length can't stop the emotions of such a scale. Somehow, Hertzfeldt knows how to use story telling in its most basic of forms to rewire your brain, and World of Tomorrow is one of his greatest successes.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.