Ice Merchants (2022)

This animated short film by João Gonzalez, which won a prize at last year’s Cannes Critics’ Week and is short-listed for an Oscar, opens with the stark image of a child playing on a swing outside a house affixed to a sheer rock face. A chasm yawns beneath the child’s feet. Clearly, the kid has nerves of steel (it makes me dizzy just to watch it, much less be there), and so does his Father, who doesn't intervene in thisveritginous play. Every day, father and son harvest ice from their mountain perch and then parachute off their deck to deliver it to the valley dwellers far below. Then, coins in hand, they return to their altitudinous home by means of an ingenious contraption. The value of hard work or the senselessness of it all? It is hard to tease apart. In any case, the absurdity of repetitive labor, as well as the comfort of such work, is not the central theme. The filmmaker describes this as a family drama about loss and family connection. Someone is missing from the ice merchants’ home in the cold mountain air. The absence is symbolized by a yellow mug, one that is never used but often contemplated. Toward the end of the story, as the film dives into the magical and the sublime, the missing family member plays a surprisingly active role in the drama. The animation is beautiful and the film is essentially silent.