Short films, big packages - documentary, 2021

Unlike more artistically-driven categories, I've come to the conclusion over the years that documentaries are difficult to really get "wrong." I have seen some bad ones (or, really, just stopped watching them) but, by and large, most stories that have been picked for the long production schedules that most producers function under (usually involving searching for funding) are usually worth seeing. That's why it's kind of remarkable to see Netflix's continued presence in the category, as funding is, uh, not a problem with them and yet they still produce excellent work on the regular, as we saw tonight with three of the five nominees having been produced by the big, red N.

First up was Audible, which is about a group of students at Maryland's School for the Deaf. The primary focus was on Amaree McKenstry-Hall, a football player, and his friends within the squad, among the cheerleaders, and how he and the rest of their community struggled with the loss of a friend to suicide. The presentation of the film was actually innovative in that it was an aural film, but was still shot so that the hearing-impaired could get the full experience, with subtitles for spoken lines (the majority of communication was, as you might expect, in ASL), as well as background sounds (i.e. music, doors closing and other atmospheric sounds, etc.) We spent a good deal of time with Amaree and how he was dealing with the same problems that many teenagers have: uncertainty about relationships, lack of a father figure, dealing with defeat and other setbacks, and so on. The overriding complication in all of that, of course, is that he's deaf and will soon have to deal with "the outside world" as they call it, away from the "bubble" that his school provides for him. One of the more jarring moments was watching the parents of Amaree's unfortunate classmate, Teddy, be apparently still oblivious to the greater pressures that would have been created by taking him out of a school that helps him with his disability, away from his friends and support network, and away from his boyfriend, The result was all too predictable and seemingly obvious to everyone else in the community. As a whole, it was a really energetic and inspiring opening.

Following that was When We Were Bullies; a production by veteran documentarian, Jay Rosenblatt, about an event that took place on a Friday after school in his childhood in Brooklyn, and his attempt to find out if anyone else in his fifth grade class who participated in that event carried the same painful memories that he rediscovered when reminded of it, 50 years later. This was the most artistic of the films of the evening, as it utilized a great deal of animation centered around the class picture of his then-10-year-old compatriots. However, it still relied on actual events and many interviews with those who perpetrated the mass action of persecution against a single classmate, although Rosenblatt failed to get a full interview with the victim, who at least reassured Jay that he had gone on to have quite a satisfying life. It's an interesting examination of the casual cruelty of children and their similar susceptibility to herd instinct (e.g. driving out and scorning the "weak") that likewise drives many segments of adult society (especially the ones that have refused to grow up.) His successful pursuit of his still-living fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Bromberg, provided some evidence of the cultural blindness that may have propelled that behavior, as she suggests that all girls are catty and boys will be boys, so there's nothing to do about it, despite her own daughter having been bullied to the point where it may have contributed to her eventual suicide. Her dismissive opinion extended to his efforts, as she felt his film would be "tedious" to watch. I'm afraid she was quite wrong in that respect.

Next was Three Songs for Benazir, which was the shortest and least fleshed out of the evening. That's perhaps because not much more needed to be said, but when it comes to the incredibly complex topic of Afghans living in a displaced persons camp in Kabul and Shaista, a young man trying to become the first of his tribe to join the Afghan National Army in order to provide for his wife, Benazir, and their impending child, it seems like there's a lot of ground to cover. However, I appreciated that co-directors Elizabeth and Gulistan Mirazei covered the topic at all, albeit in a rather plain and direct fashion that most assume is the standard boilerplate tone of anything called a "documentary." The title comes from Shaista's habit of making up songs and singing them to his perpetually-giggling wife, which is a sweet, personal note amidst the uncertainty and chaos that still defines existence in Afghanistan, which can only be heightened by living in what has become a permanent temporary existence in the camps. There wasn't really any need for a narrator to assist the story of a person trying to get ahead in the world and taking the most obvious path ahead of him (fighting the Taliban) but also being told that he's not educated enough to participate and then being told that there are no resources to educate him. It's the self-defeating spiral that has often defined that traumatized nation's existence since 1980 and, despite that "boilerplate" approach leaving the film in the shadow of the more stylistic touches of the other four, I still found it both poignant and worthwhile.

The sledgehammer of the night, however, was Lead Me Home; not only because of its emotional impact but also because of the frustration it engendered. A broad examination of homelessness in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle, the film sticks mostly to personal accounts from those afflicted, as well as those struggling to help them in the current housing crisis which, as one social worker mentions, is only going to get worse when the COVID rent abatements are finally lifted with seemingly no help from the government to save those people in danger of eviction. We go from tent city to tent city, in parks, alleyways, and on highway overpasses. Everywhere the story is the same: people eager to change their situation, but burdened by other problems (high cost of housing, low-paying jobs, addiction, psychiatric needs) that prevent them from "pulling themselves up by their bootstraps." Even when some are able to make progress, the combination of more than one of those factors is enough to pull them back into their plight. The most deeply felt moment was when one woman described the circumstances that caused her to flee her home and her abusive partner and how she had spent most of her time since then trying to pretend for her two children so that they wouldn't realize what their situation actually was and carry that stigma with them or reveal it to their peers and suffer the social consequences of it. Even worse was the side comment by a social worker helping a woman out of the abusive scenario she was living through in one of the camps: "I'm just one paycheck away from being in the tent right next to you." No decent society should allow this to become normal. This was the clear "winner" of the evening for me.

We wrapped up with The Queen of Basketball; the story of Lusia Mae Harris and her rise from the only family in a small town in Mississippi with a basketball hoop to leading Delta State University's newly-created women's basketball team to three straight national titles and being the only woman ever drafted by an NBA franchise (the New Orleans (now Utah) Jazz.) Lusia told her own story on camera, with the help of more archival footage than you'd initially expect existed, and did so with lot of winks at that camera. She knew that she was someone unusual, but carried so much humility that most of the time she wouldn't admit it. Among her notable moments was being the first woman to score in an NCAA women's basketball game and the first woman elected to the National Basketball Hall of Fame. But she was also rooted enough to have stepped away from the game and be proud of the six children she raised; all of them with a collection of doctorates and/or master's degrees and successful lives of their own. Despite the interest in the topic, the most entertaining part of the film was, without a doubt, Lusia herself, smirking at the audience who must be in on the joke, and making salient points about equality and opportunity for women without being aggressive about it for a second. It was an uplifting way to end, even if we later discovered that Lusia passed away in January and so never got to know that the story of her life had been nominated for yet another award.

So that's Oscar short season for another year, with pretty positive returns all around. If I were to pick my favorites, they'd be The Dress (live action), The Windshield Wiper (animation), and Lead Me Home (documentary), but I suspect that the winners will be different. Given that they won't even be shown live in the ceremony any longer, it's open to question as to whether short films will continue to even receive as little attention as they do now, unfortunately.