Continuing the series on the Oscar Nominated Short Animations in order of how much I like them, here comes a film so incredibly good that the remaining two must be absolutely phenomenal for me to choose them ahead of this. It’s Disney’s Paperman, available online or at the cinemas before seeing the wonderful Wreck-It Ralph.

A chance romantic encounter seems like the perfect subject for a short film. In a matter of minutes you can capture an entire romantic arc, one potentially life changing moment, and then leave the audience to fill out the rest of the story. Paperman captures one such moment, in stunning black and white. The animation – blending CG and hand drawn elements – is gorgeous, the focus on transport and office blocks giving it a somewhat Japanese feel. One morning an office worker meets a ludicrously big-eyed woman at the station, but misses his chance to talk to her. When he later sees her in the tower across the street, he tries to catch her attention. It quickly becomes a fable about fate, buying into the ancient romantic notion that some people are just meant for each other, and there isn’t much you can do to stop that. If that sounds a little mawkish, it works within the context of the story as it slowly escalates to its triumphant, magical finale.

Arguably the film could have ended in some way without requiring the planes coming to life – there was a beautiful tone and story to the film before that plot development – but it makes the brief encounter even more magical and romantic. As the music swells to a crescendo, and the man cannot escape the power of the paper planes, it gets into shameless heart stirring territory, but it does it beautifully. In six minutes Paperman manages to be more romantic than the vast majority of rom-coms released today. It’s a little bit twee, but if you get past that, you are sure to get swept away by its army of paper planes.


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