Short Stop: Wander to Wonder finds dystopia in children's television

Nina Gantz's brilliant Wander to Wonder, which is on the Oscar shortlist (and, I think, seems like a likely nominee), finds horror in a likely place: children's television. It follows the three main characters of a popular kids' show -- tiny people dressed up in Muppet-esque costumes -- following the death of their creator, an affable Mr. Rogers type. The proceedings have the feel of a post-apocalyptic tale: these three are wandering around in a decaying environ (the boarded-up house), low on provisions, haunted by the life they lived before but will never live again. The master's body lies on the floor, his death presumably unnoticed by the outside world. It's a setting ripe for strange twists.

And strange, they are. When we first start, we don't even know what these little creatures are, and we sort of never really find out. There's an uncanny quality to these human figures juxtaposed with their live-action, full-sized human co-star. What exactly are they? Are they really alive? Is this witchcraft, or just children's entertainment? Both?

We get glimpses of the show as it was, mostly because Mary likes to rewatch the tapes, relive the glory days (she's also wont to reading the piles of fan mail lying around. It's the sort of wholesome, lesson-filled fare that helps teach kids while entertaining them. Which makes the characters' descent into relative madness all the more effective and horrifying. It's like watching Barney wandering through a dystopian landscape, dick hanging out, trying to figure out what his next meal will be, quoting Hamlet. Upsetting stuff, to be sure.

The puppets are so beautifully-built, and come to life with all the weariness and heft that befit this story. You can't help but feel for them: pale, lonely, losing touch with the reality that gave them purpose and direction. They're haunted, and haunting. It feels like you're simultaneously dreaming of them and stuck in their dreams, which are increasingly nightmarish. Watching them struggle to carry on their good work, but without their compass, and without resources (and without an audience), is heartbreaking, terrible to behold.

But also wonderful, because this so perfectly executes its tone, its setting, its unraveling. Wander to Wonder is one of my favorite shorts I've seen in a while, for mining such fertile narrative ground from such an askew angle, providing laughs that quickly turn to shudders. It's a brilliantly calibrated short.

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