The art of the short film lies right in its name: short. All wheat, no chaff. Fifteen to 25 minutes of comedy or drama, and, in the case of this year’s Academy Award-nominated short films, mostly a healthy dose of both.

Four of this year’s nominated films fell in that gray area of dramedy: that place where a joke can break a mood, or a seemingly funny film can turn dark in an instant. The finest of the five nominated films, “God of Love,” falls the furthest to the comedic end of the spectrum, with equal nods to Woody Allen and the noir stylings of John Alton. The black-and-white movie follows Ray, the lead singer in a jazzy lounge band, through his misadventures in love and darts.  Never before — and probably never after — has a story been based on a dart-throwing, 20-something lounge singer, but it works. Ray’s schleppy looks are just manly enough to make his romantic scenes believable, which is necessary when the entire plot revolves around Ray wandering through Brooklyn throwing love potion-soaked darts at women who strike his fancy. The film balances its kitsch with romance equally, and was the only nominated film to make me laugh out loud.

'God of Love'

“Wish 143” could basically have been written about any teenage boy. The protagonist,  David, wants to lose his virginity. The fact that he has terminal cancer and asks a Make-A-Wish-style foundation to make his carnal dreams come true is what makes the story fiction, not reality. The problem with “Wish 143” is that while you root for David, you don’t relate to him until midway through the film. The first half is dedicated to quips and half-hearted attempts at sex, and it could’ve been truncated in lieu of expanding the emotional toll this wish takes on him, which the second half aces. Unlike all of the other nominated films, “Wish 143” left me wanting more visually; the production design’s lighting made me feel as if I was watching a made-for-TV movie.

Perhaps the darkest of the dramedies was “The Crush,” an Irish film that focuses on the love of a young boy for his second-grade teacher. The film is whimsical and funny, with enough darkness to let the viewer’s mind wander. Multiple times, I found myself wondering if it was going to get funny again; it did, but only after a dark turn. Stick with it.

'The Crush'

I was hesitant to lump “Na Wewe” in with the previous films, but the final two minutes are so exhilarating and heartwarming that it made it impossible not to. The first 14 minutes, however, are a gut-wrenching quarter-hour of ethnic warfare, child soldiers, and megalomania. Filmed in real time and set during the 1994 Burundi civil war, it shows the diabolical depths to which men would resort to prove a point, and how average people reacted to it. The director keeps his cards close to the vest, making the final scenes that much richer and more cathartic.

“The Confession” was unlike any of the other nominated films, both in artistic achievement and storytelling. The only true drama in the lot, “The Confession” revolves around two small boys with a dark secret. It’s the kind of plot Hollywood would stretch into a two-hour borefest starring a still-cute Haley Joel Osment, but with only 25 minutes, the director whittled down the story to a piercing point. A nearly four-minute stretch of silence during the middle of the film speaks louder than any words, allowing the viewer to concentrate on the beautiful camerawork and tone of the film. While the Catholic symbolism became a bit heavy-handed by the end, the film is head and shoulders above the other nominated films visually, and will most likely take home the Oscar.