Two-dimensional cel animation may not have outlived its value as an art form, but it's hard to deny that the three-dimensional variety has captured the public imagination, to the extent that even Shark Tale pulls down big box-office numbers. The reasons for the changing tastes are evident in Adam Elliot's short claymation film Harvie Krumpet, which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Subject in 2003. Harvie Krumpet displays the fragile magic of a diorama or a ViewMaster reel, a quality shared by the animated trilogy (included on the DVD) Elliot made between 1996 and 1999. His short films routinely concern similar-looking lumps with crippling afflictions as they clomp through tiny, malleable model homes.
Narrated by Geoffrey Rush, Harvie Krumpet follows the Polish-born titular hero as he migrates to Australia and endures a life of mishaps, from lightning strikes to cancerous testicles to an extended bout of Tourette Syndrome that has people thinking he's retarded. It's bitter and darkly comic, but Elliot's deadpan style and dollhouse design distances viewers from the real-world consequences of being disabled, enough that he's able to get across his central idea: Everyone is broken, but we all muddle through.
The computer-animated Santa Vs. The Snowman has a different appeal. This half-hour Christmas special aired once on ABC in 1997 and got basement ratings, then found new life in a slightly expanded and enhanced form as a 3D IMAX film. It's a funny, action-packed short, co-created by Jimmy Neutron's John Davis and Steve Oedekerk, the man behind those straight-to-video "Thumb" parodies (Frankenthumb, The Blair Thumb, et al). Santa Vs. The Snowman mostly riffs on the relentless cheer of TV Christmas specials, featuring a chorus of elves who sing "Santa Santa Santa / love love love" while telling the jolly old philanthropist, "I love you more than my own head." When a lonely snowman tries to take over Santa's operation and get some of that affection for himself, a full-scale battle ensues, with snowmen and elves attacking each other in a clever parody of The Empire Strikes Back, using snowballs, gingerbread men, mistletoe, and hot cocoa as weapons.
Inevitably, Santa Vs. The Snowman sweetens up, in a surprisingly poignant finale where the snowman learns what being Santa means, but Davis and Oedekerk earn the ending with their loopy vision of the North Pole as part theme park and part temple. There's real joy in the way they move the little figures around their digital play-set, and it's hard not to buy into the fantasy that lies at the core of all 3D animation: that the world becomes more manageable as it gets miniaturized.