War is Over!

The package of Academy Award-nominated animated short films shown in theaters this year contained the five nominees plus two other “honorable mention”-type near-nominees. The nominees were shown first, with the last of the five being War is Over!

Subtitled Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko (meaning the music of John Lennon, but Yoko Ono has to be mentioned because she and their son Sean produced the film), the mostly whimsical tale takes place on the front lines of World War I, or at least a fictional version of war with the same style of trench warfare as World War I.

Two soldiers, one on each side, though they don’t know that their opponent is from the opposing army, are engaged in a spirited game of chess via carrier pigeon. Their buddies crowd around the chess set when a new move is to be made, fascinated by this distraction from their grim jobs.

Violence intervenes, though, as one side launches an attack on the other. Bullets and bombs are flying, soldiers are falling dead or wounded all around, and even the pigeon is at risk flying about in the mayhem.

As luck would have it, the two chess players, still having no idea of each other’s identity, become locked in hand-to-hand combat. Just as one is poised to finish off the other, the little scraps of paper with their moves on it spills out of his pocket and they realize who each other is, and instinctively treat each other as friends to be safeguarded rather than enemies to be slain.

Soon all the soldiers are treating each other this way and celebrating, in response to an officer announcing that official word has come down that “War is Over!”

It’s hard to argue with the sentiment, with the idea that war is monstrously stupid and evil and the human race would be far better off without it. But I wouldn’t say the film did all that much for me. It’s decent, but it didn’t blow me away, didn’t particularly inspire me. It wasn’t the one I’d pick as the best of the Oscar nominees in this category. (I’d probably go with Letter to a Pig.)

Yet, this is the one that won.