Hollyshorts 2025: Round 3

I'm back with more from Hollyshorts! 

I don't want to be too hard on Naomi Noir's Mother's Child, because it's a short that clearly has its heart in the right place. It's about a woman, Mary, who lives with and cares for her 25 year-old son, who lives with disabilities. We see her juggling all the tasks that come with the territory, along with other more mundane life stuff. Phone calls, the plumber is here for repairs, cleaning up after the dog, cleaning up after her son. It's hard. She wants to be a good mom, is clearly trying her best, but it's hard. It's hard.

Mother's Child

There's a bit of a cost to entry here, because this is not an easy-on-the-eyes affair. The overall look is a graphic, sketchy sort of aesthetic (as a huge Damien Rice fan, it reminded me of the art that often graces his album covers). I didn't mind that, but it's blended with much uglier 3D animation that makes the whole thing, taken together, just look like a hodge-podge mess. Really unpleasant to look at, which, yeah, you could argue represents the everyday struggle of being Mary, but for me, it kept me at more of a distance rather than bringing me in closer to her. It felt like a locked gate around the empathy I imagine this short would like to inspire. It's a sort of warts-and-all deal that feels more like oops-all-warts. 

I don't quite know what to make of Martine Frossard's Hypersensitive (also known as Hypersensible), but I find myself so taken with it. It's a surrealist journey into a young woman's mind/experience that gave me the feeling of an itch you can't scratch, putting into imagery feelings and sensory experiences that exist beyond words, but that are, in some cases, universal. We follow this woman on a car journey that maybe results in a crash, or is maybe just a symbolic vehicle to bring us into her world, and her emotional landscape.

Hypersensitive (Hypersensible)

Whatever it is, there's a feeling of deep empathy here, and startling self-reflection. I think a dozen people might understand this a dozen different ways, but likely in ways that would overlap, correspond, be in conversation with each other. There's something so deeply human about this work, and hopeful. My ready is that there's some sort of past trauma in this woman's life that has left her feeling lost in her own body, but she finds healing in the simple experiences of being alive, taking things one day at a time, and heeding the world around her. She's able to pick up the pieces of who she is, and un-peel the layers of who she was, to find a new wholeness, and to blossom anew.

I don't know how much of this is what Frossard was getting at, or if the work was always meant to invoke personal reflections and thus varied interpretations, but it's a gorgeous short, and one that will stick with me.

One of the best shorts I've seen this year is Jan Saska's Hurikán, a dynamic tour-de-force that never stopped surprising me. The black-and-white hand-drawn animation is so gorgeous, and has a fantastic sense of weight and rhythm to it. The whole thing feels so cinematic, like it extends beyond its runtime and exists further out where we'll never see. It's a joy to watch.

Hurikán

The short centers on a pig-man who, because of a fuck-up at a local bar, is tasked with getting a keg of beer once the bar's runs empty. Simple enough, task, yeah? Not so much. Hurikán has that classic, fun "and then...and then..." structure to it, done in deliriously entertaining fashion here. One thing leads to another, and the escalation is delicious and sometimes absurd. It's a little zany, with some great physical comedy, and every beat is hit just right, lands just right. It's a beautifully tuned little machine that doesn't always go where you expect. For me, I was even surprised by the ending. It's just an awesome, fun ride, one that I think anyone can enjoy.