Jans and I went to the Tower Theater yesterday to see the Oscar nominated short documentaries. It is clear why they are considered for the award. All four (yeah we didn’t get to see one of them) were beautifully crafted, with amazing cinematography conveying the message without necessarily having the crispest images.
Incidents in New Baghdad was so heartbreaking as we followed one of the soldiers who rescued children wounded in one of the well-publicized attacks made by American soldiers on Iraqi civilians. He gave a reading of that event, the experience as a soldier in Iraq, and being a single father with PTSD now that he came back.
Saving Face showed women surviving acid attacks in Pakistan. Listening to one of the women telling how her husband threw acid in her face, her sister-in-law throwing gasoline on her and her mother-in-law lighting a match and throwing it at her just to leave the room and lock the doors from the outside, nearly killed me right then and there. On top of that, she was then forced to move back into her husband’s house because she couldn’t take care of her children on her own. She later got pregnant by that same man. That was just one of the many narratives that the doc told. The images were haunting.
The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom was the odd one out of the four. It was about the tsunami following the quake in Japan last year. It started off with “home video footage” of the water sweeping away houses, cars, and people. People trying to run from the water, climbing up the mountain side, other people running to their assistance, and being swept away also. The narrative went on to discuss the relationship between the survivors’ rebuilding their life, and the symbolism the cherry blossoms provides for these people. I have to admit that it left me a bit confused as to how the doc was conceived. If the connection between the tsunami and the cherry blossom was there from the get go.
The Barber from Birmingham was a tale of one of the civil rights movement’s foot soldier, who were a part of the school integration, Bloody Sunday, et cetera. Interviews with this barber was intermingled with archive footage of white supremacy, resistance and police brutality.
I’m so happy I saw these. In certain ways they slaughtered most of the docs we saw during Sundance due to the heartbreaking narratives that were so expertly told, the footage, the relevance to how we view, treat, and talk about people.
It made me reconsider a statement Scott Carrier made in our class, namely his desire for action footage in the docs. I kinda scoffed at the necessity of action footage and I thought Carrier overemphasized it. What drew me in with these four documentaries was the action footage. The unstaged footage just grabbed my heart and made me see just how relevant all four films were to the negotiations of our shared reality we have to make every single day.
If you are able to, go see them quick before they are pulled from the tower.
