Generally, I have mixed feelings about the Best Animated Feature Oscar category. I mean, if Disney/Pixar comes out with a vaguely credible effort, they generally win. This was particularly true in 2016 when the oh-so-carefully constructed “important message” Zootopia beat out the wildly creative and original Kubo and the Two Strings. Kubo was beautifully told through some of the best stop action animation in recent memory, it was family friendly, it told an uplifting story, and it featured a great cover of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” from Regina Spektor. But Disney’s Zootopia was a huge success and everybody loved its rank sentimentality. (To be fair, Kubo did suffer from whitewashing, with prominent white actors voicing Asian characters.)
https://youtu.be/8hUOKjy-9-o
There have, of course, been some notable exceptions – most significantly when Sony’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse beat out Pixar’s Incredibles 2 and Disney’s Ralph Breaks The Internet. But there was no way the most innovative animated film in decades could have lost.
This year, however, there is a rich, diverse, and exciting field of nominees from three different studios. And I’ve been fortunate enough to see (well, mostly see) all of them.
Disney/Pixar has three nominations:
- Encanto – A Columbian-set musical featuring hit songs from wunderkind Lin-Manuel Miranda. If you have small children, you have spent the last month (at least) listening to “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” on rapid repeat. It is also a wonderful film with great dancing, a fantastic Latinx-themed story, and truly vibrant animation. For me, this was the best animation out of the House of Mouse since at least Big Hero Six.
- Raya and the Last Dragon – A well-done fantasy adventure set in legendary China, starring the voice acting of the ever-popular actor/comedian Awkwafina, and, to my eyes, looking a lot like a kid-friendly version of Ten Rings.
- Luca – A Pixar release that I actually got so bored with I skipped much of the middle to get to the end. I never do this. And I was predisposed to love this movie. I mean, two boys lusting after a Vespa scooter over the course of the summer, right? And yet… It just suffered from a massive lack of storytelling. It felt a lot like a short film that just got stretched beyond its limits.
Sony Animation has one entry – The Mitchells vs. the Machines. Coming from the same studio that brought us Spider-Verse, it’s no surprise that this movie has an animation style that looks like nothing else – it just pops off the screen with bits of text and explosive colors. It tells the story of a teen-age girl who wants to go to film school. She has big issues with her father (and this is the great part) which have nothing to do with her being gay. Dad wants Katie to get outdoors, and Katie wants to shoot and edit films. In fact, her sexuality is an underplayed part of the story – it’s just who she is. There’s none of the “very special episodeness” of the story. I will confess that I’m biased on this film – friends of my eldest and his Dear Wife worked on it. But it would still be one of my favorites.
And finally, there’s Flee, the Danish-language (with segments in Dari) documentary about a real-life teen-aged refugee who has to live a lie in order to escape Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. It takes he and his family years to escape first to Russia and then to various European countries. Like Mitchells, the protagonist Amin is gay, and while it is an important part of who he is, it is not central to his challenges escaping to the West. Unlike all of these other films, Flee is hand-drawn (on computers) with 2D animation. It also switches from a muted earth-toned full-color pallet to gray-and-black lines-and-wash to depict the most perilous moments. Flee is rated PG-13, but it’s not for the younger set. It’s a disturbing and uplifting film that gets at the refugee experience in a way that is interesting, touching, and honest. In addition to being nominated for Best Animated Feature, Flee has also been nominated for Best Documentary Feature as well as Best International Feature.
So there is no question that Encanto is going to win Best Animated Feature. It tells a great story, it has fantastic animation, it has multiple hit songs, it hits both fun and serious notes, and it arguably could have been nominated for Best Picture.
Any other year, Mitchells could have been a contender for the win. It was so much fun with the technology-run-amok story line, an adorable pug sidekick, and all the fun moments from Katie’s short films. Mitchells was exactly the kind of escapism we needed on Netflix during the peak of the pandemic.
And then there is Flee. I have to admit that Flee was probably my favorite of all these films. I bought a copy so I could see it, but I can’t say I was looking forward to it. And yet, once I started Flee I don’t think I paused it more than once, if at all. Serious, adult-oriented animated films never win this category. The Breadwinner, Persepolis, The Triplets of Belleville and the Wes Anderson animated features were never in serious contention. I hope that Flee will win one of the other two categories it is nominated in.
Encanto is going to be another win for Disney, and it’s going to deserve it. But don’t miss seeing Mitchells vs. the Machines or Flee. They are equally deserving of your time.