By Laurie Baron
SAN DIEGO─Although Israel’s entry in the Best Foreign Film category did not get nominated for an Oscar, the Israeli-French production Aya garnered a nomination for Best Live Action Short It can be seen this week at the Ken Cinema as one of the five shorts in contention for the award.
Directors Oded Binnun and Mihal Brezis have fashioned Aya around the chance meeting of two strangers at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. Aya played by Sarah Adler is waiting for someone to arrive until a chauffeur asks her to hold a sign for another passenger while he moves his vehicle to avoid it from being towed. She reluctantly agrees and then finds herself welcoming Mr. Overby (Ulrich Thomson) from Finland who thinks she is his driver.
Instead of clarifying the misunderstanding, she drives him to Jerusalem where he is judging an international piano competition. The movie revolves around their conversation which reveals they are polar opposites. He is a man of deliberation and reason while she follows her impulses and emotions. This leaves the audience wondering if the ride will culminate in a tryst at his hotel and who was Aya waiting for in the first place. Of course, I won’t reveal how this is resolved.
Despite solid acting and an engaging premise, I doubt Aya will win an Oscar. It runs 40 minutes. This is a handicap for a genre of film that relies on a quick set up to prepare viewers for a plot twist at the end, Indeed, the directors plan to expand Aya into a feature length film.
The other nominees exploit the shortness of the genre to heighten the impact of surprise endings. Boogaloo and Graham (14 minutes) from Northern Ireland tells a delightful tale of two brothers who receive chicks as a present from their parents. They raise them as pets until their pregnant mother insists that their father get rid of the filthy creatures. This charming film might take home a gold statue.
The Chinese nominee The Butter Lamp (15 minutes) features a photographer never moving his camera as he shoots a group of Tibetan nomads posed in front of backdrops of different places in China. Placing his subjects in front of various land and cityscapes visually illustrates the clash of tradition and cultural change in contemporary China.
The Swiss entry Parvaneh (25 minutes) explores the odd-couple relationship between a shy Afghani teenager working illegally in Switzerland and a flamboyant female Swiss punker. Parveneh lacks the documents to wire the money she has earned to her family in Afghanistan. Her Swiss counterpart is willing to do it for a price. This inadvertently entails attending a party with the punker’s friends.
The British short The Phone Call (20 minutes) captures the compassion of a hotline operator played convincingly by Sally Hawkins as she urgently tries to persuade an unseen caller voiced by Jim Broadbent not to commit suicide in the wake of his wife’s death This poignant piece won me over, and, I hope the voters of the Academy will feel the same.
Baron is a professor emeritus of history at San Diego State University. He may be contacted at lawrence.baron@sdjewishworld.com