Short documentaries can take a focused look at a single, smaller subject in a way that a larger feature-length documentary simply cannot. While feature documentaries can offer a wide arrangement of knowledge on a particular topic, there’s nothing like a short documentary to take a laser-focused look at one moment in time. This year’s nominees for the Academy Award for Best Short Documentary cover topics as broad as the Japanese tsunami that happened nearly a near ago today to a lone Chicago barber’s experience with the Civil Rights Movement. Join Dre, Allistair, and I as we discuss some of the nominees.
A note, however. The two nominees God is Bigger than Elvis and Saving Face were not screened for critics the same way the others shorts were, so we are unfortunately unable to present reviews of those.
Incident in New Baghdad
Director: James Spione
While it took some time for the public to look at the Iraq War with dismay, it took U.S. infantry soldier Ethan McCord a day. While on patrol with his battalion, he witnessed one of the most infamous events of the Iraq War, in which an unannounced American helicopter attack on armed Iraqis, unarmed children, and two foreign journalists took place. The event soon blew up in the news, exposing the hopeless situation abroad. The tragedy is gone from America’s conscious now, but McCord wouldn’t forget the events so easily.
Diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, McCrod recounts how he got to where he is today and what he can’t forget about what happened overseas. While it’s fascinating to see what it’s like to live out that moment when a soldier realizes he is “just being used” by his country, this short lacks focus and style. I also found director James Spione’s methods of storytelling troublesome. Showing us pictures of dead children is effective, but it’s a lazy, cheap way around communicating a feeling. I found it distasteful. It’s the filmmakers responsibility to find a way to convey McCord’s emotions and I think there are smarter, less direct ways of achieving this.
On top of this, the film is all over the place in its content. The slaying of two journalists is never really explained, yet we jarringly leave McCord’s story to see news footage that briefly introduces this element. It just felt like a mess holding up a pretty tired message of the Iraq War being fought for nothing. McCord is the only interesting part of this film and I think he deserved better than this. [48] — Allistair Pinsof
The Barber of Birmingham circles around James Armstrong, a barber turned foot soldier who played an important role during the civil rights movement. Now an old man who owns a small barber shop that could double as a museum, the documentary splices between the hardships experienced during the civil rights movement and the sheer joy of the dream coming to fruition with the 2008 election and the inauguration of America’s first black president.
While the documentary manages to make you feel shameful for our country’s past mistakes and prideful of how far we’ve come, what ultimately gets lost is it’s key player, James Armstrong. The Barber of Birmingham had something really special with Armstrong, a sweet old man who’s both jovial and charming every time he’s on the screen. However, the documentary spends more time speaking on the civil rights movement than they do with Armstrong’s experience during the movement. By bypassing Armstrong’s back story, anecdotes and general thoughts, The Barber of Birmingham manages to resemble a typical educational film shown when the teacher was too lazy to — well — teach. Still, the strength off of Armstrong alone and the importance of the civil rights movement alone makes it worthwhile.
The Barber of Birmingham
Director: Robin Fryday
Director: Robin Fryday
The Barber of Birmingham circles around James Armstrong, a barber turned foot soldier who played an important role during the civil rights movement. Now an old man who owns a small barber shop that could double as a museum, the documentary splices between the hardships experienced during the civil rights movement and the sheer joy of the dream coming to fruition with the 2008 election and the inauguration of America’s first black president.
While the documentary manages to make you feel shameful for our country’s past mistakes and prideful of how far we’ve come, what ultimately gets lost is it’s key player, James Armstrong. The Barber of Birmingham had something really special with Armstrong, a sweet old man who’s both jovial and charming every time he’s on the screen. However, the documentary spends more time speaking on the civil rights movement than they do with Armstrong’s experience during the movement. By bypassing Armstrong’s back story, anecdotes and general thoughts, the documentary manages to resemble a typical educational film shown when the teacher was too lazy to — well — teach. Still, the strength off of Armstrong alone and the importance of the civil rights movement alone makes it worthwhile. [67] — Andres Bolivar
The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom
Director: Lucy Walker
The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom tells the stories of a group of survivors of the March 2011 earthquake and subsequent tsunami that left over 15,000 dead and thousands more missing to this day. The film opens with a fast paced re-telling of the horrors the survivors lived through, edited quickly and spliced with footage of the actual disaster, as if the filmmaker is trying to recreate some small iota of the sense of terror these people lived through. From there, the film takes a reasonably standard, if effective path, showing how the various survivors are trying to cope with their ruined lives. There’s a metaphor throughout of the cherry blossom, hence the title. The cherry blossoming season, an event near-sacred to the Japanese, occurred just over a month after the disaster, during which most of the documentary is shot.
There’s a very powerful metaphor for the indomitability of the human spirit within the cherry blossoms, where something so small and delicate lives so beautifully for such a fleeting time, only to die just as gracefully as it came into the world. Choosing to lean more on this metaphor than on horrifying footage of people and houses being swept away was a good choice, as the small amount of horror the film starts off with is more than enough for a good impact. It is a slow, searing look at humanity at its best, picking up the pieces as best as possible. [85] — Alex Katz
