Oscar Shorts: Best Animated Short Film Nominees 2022 (2023)

3 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Ostrich Glitch

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Of the five Academy Award nominees for Best Animated Short, my favorite by far is Lachlan Pendragon's 11-minute An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It, from Australia. A meta-movie, the stop-motion short focuses on office drone Neil who tries and fails to sell things from his cubicle. Around the edges of the frame, we can see hands working in fast-motion, making everything move. We see time counters, which change numbers with every cut. When the ostrich appears and tells him that the world is fake, Neil begins noticing strange things about his environment. And then it gets really weird.

The other four — all hand-drawn — are ravishingly gorgeous, but less interesting. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (34 minutes) is a beautiful children's tale of the friendship between the three animals and the one human, and the wisdom they share. The Flying Sailor (8 minutes) depicts the title sailor's life flashing before his eyes after an accident. Ice Merchants (15 minutes) is probably my second favorite, about a father and son who parachute from their home on a high cliff into the village below to sell ice. The sensation of height and falling is tactile, and it has a vivid climax and a terrific ending. My Year of Dicks (24 minutes) is just what it sounds like: the story of a teen girl trying to lose her virginity. It has weird, hallucinogenic animation that looks like a combination of hand-drawn and rotoscope, but it's sadly not very funny.