The live-action shorts: Playful Christmas tales, fraternal friction, a ‘visual poem’ and social strife

The 2023 Oscar-nominated live-action shorts are highlighted by fascinating choices by a promising group of filmmakers, whether lacing environments with hidden meanings, fashioning a visual poem, letting Buster Keaton crash into harsh social reality, calmly observing character comedy or having a playful good time.

Estranged brothers Turlough (Seamus O’Hara) and Lorcan (James Martin) must work together to honor their mother’s last wishes after her death.

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‘An Irish Goodbye’

It hasn’t escaped “An Irish Goodbye” co-director Ross White that his country’s “The Banshees of Inisherin” and “The Quiet Girl” have also received Oscar nominations this year, and all three films deal with “characters in a rural Irish location dealing with loneliness, isolation and desperate for connection,” he says. “Maybe it is a bit of something that is in the Irish mind at the minute.”

“Goodbye” is a character comedy looking at the naturalistic interactions of brothers Turlough (played by Seamus O’Hara) and Lorcan (James Martin, who, like his character has Down syndrome) muddling through their recently deceased mother’s surprisingly complex list of last wishes. The two deliver remarkable performances that convey not just fully realized individuals, but a believable fraternal bond and friction.

“We come from a theater background,” says co-director Tom Berkeley. “I think maybe our tendency is to put these stark, almost flat frames on characters and see things play out that way. We had a bit of a hang-up about that: Did we need to film it up a bit? I think what we came to learn is the content dictates the form.”

Greenland girl Pipaluk (Mila Heilmann Kreutzmann) searches for her missing sister in “Ivalu,” called “a visual poem” by its director.

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‘Ivalu’

“Ivalu” is about a Greenland girl searching for her beloved sister. Her quest subtly becomes epic, lending the feeling of something beyond logic, almost like a folk song. Director Anders Walter says he thinks of the beautifully shot film with little interactive dialogue as a “visual poem.” “It’s based on a Danish graphic novel, and the imagery combined with the [narration] really felt like you were reading through a book of poetry. That became the inspiration of how to do the film,” he says.

Producer Rebecca Pruzan adds, “There’s so little dialogue; it’s so much in emotion and the relationship to nature and color. It’s a rhythm; it becomes like music.”

The film incorporates Indigenous myths while dealing with very serious, real-world subject matter. “It was always going to be a [metaphorical] journey,” Walter says. “She starts in a small town and goes more and more into the epic landscapes. She finds herself isolated. It reflects on that inner, emotional journey.”

“Le Pupille” tells a playful Christmas story in the form of an actual letter from a girl in a religious school in Italy during World War II.

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‘Le Pupille’

In “Le Pupille,” director Alice Rohrwacher brings to playful life a letter about a World War II religious school in Italy. There’s a wealthy local woman pleading with the students to pray for her wayward man to return. There’s a Nativity scene and most important, an enormous cake.

The letter’s writer, the novelist Elsa Morante; the recipient, Goffredo Fofi, a noted journalist and critic. Fofi gave Rohrwacher the letter and she saw a film in it — though its events don’t teach some grand lesson. A song sung by the girls says as much: “The moral? Don’t know. Who knows?”

“The song is made up of the words of the letter,” says Rohrwacher through a translator. “I wanted to finish with the same words Elsa used. ‘Destiny works in mysterious ways.’ ”

Rohrwacher captures moments of absurd beauty, such as the girls in the nativity scene hovering without explanation. The filmmaker’s sense of humor shows up in inexplicable edits, a clever dog and other bits of liveliness that make “Le Pupille” a light, fun watch. But she also has, beneath the top layers of this Christmas story she was asked to make by Oscar-winning auteur Alfonso Cuarón, her own sub rosa meanings.

“The cake is a metaphor because those in power want to keep the resources all for themselves — they want to have the cake” in all its excess, rather than sharing it with those struggling to survive in wartime Italy.

Ebba (Sigrid Husjord) gets into a tram whose conductor has stepped out, leading to an unexpected evening in “Night Ride.”

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‘Night Ride’

“Night Ride” is a sort-of Christmas comedy in which a woman boards a tram just after the conductor has stepped off and accidentally drives it through her Norwegian town. Among the passengers: a trans woman who runs afoul of some toughs.

Director Eirik Tveiten says, “The train was a metaphor for society. There is a microcosm there and they’re all locked in.” He laughs and continues, “The comedy is that the bystanders are caught in a trap. I wanted it to go off pretty much like a Buster Keaton film to contrast when you get into the serious part.”

Although the main role wasn’t written for a person of short stature, “when [Sigrid Husjord] came to the audition, she was so good and she added so many qualities to the story.” When she faces down the bullies, he says, “it’s like David against Goliath.”

Assaults on trans people, Tveiten says, are becoming more common. “This goes in waves in Norway,” he says. “We’ve been pretty liberal and accepting for a long time. Then there’s been a backlash. You know, things develop and a few groups in society can’t accept what’s going on. This film was going to be shown live in St. Petersburg at a prominent gay film festival, but they had to shut down because they were attacked in so many different ways. They had to go online.”

A girl (Nawelle Ewad) tries to evade the much-older man her parents have arranged for her to marry in “The Red Suitcase.”

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‘The Red Suitcase’

A 16-year-old Iranian girl, shipped to Luxembourg to marry a decades-older man, desperately tries to evade the groom at the airport, clinging to the suitcase of the title, which contains everything she owns, including her beautiful drawings and paintings.

Expatriate Iranian director Cyrus Neshvad says he has been burning to make a film about the roiling social situation in his native land. He says the protagonist’s father has decided “to give the daughter to another person. It’s about the domination of the man over the woman. They’re allowed to do that; it’s in the rules. Because the country is scared now, scared that people will do something.”

Neshvad has laced his film with symbolism to convey his meaning. He compares the red suitcase to “her heart. Everything that is so important for her, it’s inside of this luggage.” It’s no accident she frequently clutches it to her chest.

Neshvad selected her wardrobe to suggest she is a gift; he framed shots to “marry” the subjects. He also placed subliminal messages about objectification and sexualization in ads around the airport, including a fascinating, even chilling, final shot. But if there’s a climactic moment, it’s one with particular resonance today: “When she’s taking the hijab off her head, I asked her to look in the lens of the camera. ‘You are talking to all the other women. Invite them to join you.’ ”