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Aside from the familiar claymation of a Wallace & Gromit installment, the animated shorts are primarily done in CGI. The films range from clever tales of morality, as in the meeting of a too-busy businessman and a generous homeless man in French Roast, to supernatural slapstick, as in the surreal battle between death and medicine in The Lady and The Reaper. Logorama, directed by French graphic studio H5, is a gimlet-eyed highlight: The film’s entire world is created from corporate logos, giving an unlikely depth to its action-focused car chases and shoot outs. (And there’s something cathartic about watching a computer-animated Ronald McDonald take Big Boy hostage.)
The live-action shorts oscillate between social commentary and ridiculous comedy. Kavi addresses modern-day slavery in India, and The Door explores the Chernobyl meltdown and its impact on a small family. Perhaps the greatest treat is Joachim Back‘s The New Tenants, in which absurdist misunderstandings lead to over-the-top violence, with no forced moralizing to sully the spectacle. Like any other great short, The New Tenants embraces its medium and pulls off tricks that a feature-length film simply couldn’t sustain.