Weekends

This Oscar-nominated short offers a surrealistic point-of-view movie as a small boy spends the weekdays with his mother, who is studying to be an accountant, and the weekends with his father, who has cool samurai swords and plays video games with his son. These sequences are interspersed with dream sequences of flying. Each parent tries to move on with life, which causes the protagonist some alarm, but in the end, nothing much happens and life goes on.

Has animation entered its anecdotage? That period of long, rambling discourses that seem to start out well and pertinently, continue with some interesting-seeming details and then after a white, end with nothing at all being different? Because that's what happens here. This is quite unlike being in a phone conversation with my great-aunt Esther, who would keep you on the phone for hours. Every forty-five minutes like clockwork, she would say "You know what I mean?" When you replied "Yes, Esther" to prove you hadn't hung up on her, she would switch from that interminable story to a different endless one.

Perhaps this short might have some value to kids whose parents are going through a divorce, wondering if the world will ever move on. However, the program at the IFC where I saw this notes "Not suitable for children under 8". So much for that thought.

Wasn't the best out of the 5 nominated. I actually preferred tweet tweet over this one.

I have watched quite a few animations recently where they have been technically very good, but have offered me very little in the way of feelings. Weekends managed to be a fantastic break from that, as it has so much heart and realism to it that it is as far from experimental as you can get. However it is still very creative, and technically the animation is great. The film sees a young boy going between parents due to their divorce, and follows the state of turmoil and confusion he finds himself. I read it is a very personal film for the writer/director, and I can believe it because it is incredibly well observed in the detail of the situation.

Without any dialogue, it tells us a lot about the parents, about the conditions and feelings in both homes, and informs how the boy is stuck with it. The choice of music, the man-cave aspect of the father's new home, the walk of the pickup/dropoff all contain detail which add to the viewing experience and make for a better film. The dream sequences and the structure of the film convey the sense of being in the moment with the boy very well, so even if it is not something you have experienced, it is still very clear and easy to follow.

"Weekends" was nominated for Best Animated Short, but like most of the time these days, this independent film lost out to a Disney or Pixar short (in this case, "Bao" by Pixar).

The story is told without words and a few times I felt confused as it wasn't always easy to tell what was happening (especially with the father at the end) and the film was incredibly somber...made more so by the lovely but depressing music by the French composer, Satie. The film consists of recollections by a child about being passed from parent to parent on weekends because of a divorce.

So is it any good? Well, I loved the hand-drawn animation....it was unique looking and very nice. As for the story, however, it just felt as if I needed more...more to understand what was occurring. It is not an easy film to love but it is well made.

The best animated short film of the 20th Animation Show of Shows. Simply put, this is the story of a young Asian boy who struggles with his parent's separation, and has to transition between being with his father on the weekends and his mother during the week. It is a fairly sad film, accompanied by Gymnipedie No.1 all throughout, but it has both its scary and comedic moments as well.

Stunning animation, beautiful music, and a relatable story, Weekends is a film that you should definitely find the time to watch, maybe this weekend?

Hoping this wins the 2018 Academy Award for Best Animation Short Film.