"Helium" is a Danish short film that runs slightly over 20 minutes and won an Academy Award last year. Denmark actually has a really good record in the live action short film category and looking at the plot in here, it should come to nobody as a surprise that Anders Walter won the Oscar for this one. I am actually surprised that people considered the Martin Freeman film the frontrunner. "Helium" was his 3rd short film work in his career and by far his most successful. I wonder if he is going to change to full feature films at some point just like Anders Thomas Jensen did a while ago.
Anyway, this film is about a dying boy (Oscar bait!) and a man who does his best to make the boy's final days as bearable as possible. Sometimes lying isn't all bad. He invents a fictitious wonderful place named "Helium" and replaces the parents' story that the boy will fall into a long sleep similar to hibernation. He tells the boy that he will soon go to "Helium". This place is also depicted in the film, which certainly added a lot to this film. Apart from that, we also see the man's struggles of dealing with grief and some interactions with a nurse who helps the man. All in all, a good short movie, but sometimes I felt that it just was too in your face and over-the-top and some subtlety would not have hurt. Not the best of the year for me, but worth a watch. Make sure you get subtitles unless you speak Danish.
Anyway, this film is about a dying boy (Oscar bait!) and a man who does his best to make the boy's final days as bearable as possible. Sometimes lying isn't all bad. He invents a fictitious wonderful place named "Helium" and replaces the parents' story that the boy will fall into a long sleep similar to hibernation. He tells the boy that he will soon go to "Helium". This place is also depicted in the film, which certainly added a lot to this film. Apart from that, we also see the man's struggles of dealing with grief and some interactions with a nurse who helps the man. All in all, a good short movie, but sometimes I felt that it just was too in your face and over-the-top and some subtlety would not have hurt. Not the best of the year for me, but worth a watch. Make sure you get subtitles unless you speak Danish.