The documentary short subject category is typically
filled by films that take a laser focus on either small profiles of interesting
people or subjects or profiles that bring to the fore a microcosm of a much broader
issue.
Under the first heading you’d find Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405 and Knife Skills. The former is a profile of a middle-aged woman who has
suffered most of her life from mental illness and depression, but through her
art (painting and sculpture) she finds an outlet for her anxieties. The film is
structured in a way that the circumstances of her life are pieced together over
the course of 40 minutes so at first we wonder, given her unusual speaking
style, if perhaps she suffered something physical. Eventually we learn about
her childhood with a father who loved her but had trouble verbalizing his love
and a mother who loved her but may have caused serious psychological harm
without realizing it. Childhood OCD gave way to a nervous breakdown and
eventually electro-shock therapy, which I was flabbergasted to learn is still
administered. There are aspects to her personality that seem so child-like and
innocent, but beneath the surface she has a firm understanding of everything
and of how to work through it to have something like a “normal” life. It’s both
inspiring and heartbreaking.
Knife Skills
follows Edwin’s, a classic French restaurant in Cleveland that aims to employ
ex-convicts while putting them through an intensive six month culinary course.
The found, Brandon, is an ex-con himself. He has a loving demeanor in his
business but with a noticeable hard edge and a deep understanding of his own
limitations. The staff are motivated (At least the one we meet. We also learn
that several dozen drop out of the program before completion) and the cooks
learn French cooking terminology from scratch. For my part, as someone who
makes his living in fine dining, I’d love to see a profile of Brandon to find
out where his knowledge of food, win, cheese, service, and hospitality comes
from.
There’s an argument to be made that Heaven is an issue piece dealing with mental illness and Knife Skills is really about the
problems that 650,000 released inmates face in this country every year, but the
other three films are rooted more squarely in larger social issues.
Traffic Stop
opens with the dashcam footage of a traffic stop for speeding. The stop escalates
at an alarming rate from routine to physical altercation with the police
officer, a white man, dragging a black woman out of her car, wrestling her to
the ground, and cuffing her in what appears to be an excruciatingly painful
position. Sadly, we’ve come to learn that these incidents involving black
motorists are all too common. The film speaks obliquely about the larger issue
of institutional racism but delves into this woman’s life as a dancer as a
grade school teacher, as a master’s degree holder who has hopes of getting a
doctorate one day. She lives a normal life, getting on in the world like anyone
else. She says she never imagined something like this would happen to her, and
now in the background of her life is this reprehensible act and the stain of an
arrest on her record. As the film comes to a close, she points out how a Google
search of her name used to bring up a series of positive images of her dancing
and teaching, but now you have to sift through her mug shots and news reports
before encountering something positive. She was lucky I guess to come out of the
traffic stop with her life intact, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t lose
something essential.
In Edith + Eddie
director Laura Checkoway brings attention to the issue of ageism and elder
abuse. Edith is a 95-year old black woman who has recently married her partner
of ten years, a 94-year old white man. As Edith begins to suffer early
dementia, power of attorney has been placed with a non-family member advocate
who never even meets Edith until the day she comes to administer a court order
to move her half way across the country without her husband. Edith and Eddie
want that she remains in the home she built with her first husband, where she
raised her kids. One of her daughters wants the same. But the other seems only
to want the profit from the sale of the house. It’s a gut-wrenching case of two
adults’ wishes being ignored because we have a tendency to treat the elderly
like children.
Hunting, West Virginia is the setting for Heroin(e) which follows a few key Samaritans
in a community that sees ten times the national average of drug overdoses. Jan
is a first responder with the fire department who has seen too many
drug-related deaths in recent years. A family court judge runs drug court like
a 12 step program but with the power to put people in jail. She talks to the
addicts before her not like criminals, but with compassion, honesty, and a
sense of hope that they will improve their lives. Necia works with a charity
that distributes brown bag dinners to women working the streets as prostitutes.
And then there are the recovering addicts supporting their efforts and serving
as an example to others of what’s possible. Any of these people could have
their story expanded to feature length, but this film just takes a snapshot of
an ongoing problem.
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