Wars to walruses - 2022 Documentary shorts

It's that time of year again and we'll be seeing all of the Oscar-nominated short films over the next three days. Like usual, it was a solid selection that didn't have any "bad" or misplaced selections, but there were a couple that I think elevated themselves above the rest.

How Do You Measure a Year?: I appreciate this one in principle but mostly for its social analysis contexts. Director Jay Rosenblatt decided to try to document the mental and emotional growth of his daughter, Ella, by asking her the same set of questions on her birthday every year from the age of two to the age of eighteen. While many have chosen to see this as a documentary about their changing relationship as she (and he) aged, I was much more interested in her sense of self-awareness and awareness of the world around her as she developed. I think my perspective may have been different if I'd actually had children of my own with the concern that many parents develop about how their kids will see them and whether their relationship of absolute devotion with a toddler may radically change with that of a teenager and an adult. My experience on a daily basis in that respect is solely with the teenager and adult stages, so I wasn't as taken with the cute or tender responses that Ella gave as a youngster, but I could see absolute parallels between the stages she displayed from the age of 13 onward with those that I'd seen in Tricia's daughter, including the same use of language (employing "like" before every three words at the age of 14; "I think, like, we're, like, fighting all the time, but we still, like, make up at the end...") and beginning to question the standards that are set before her. The most amusing point was when she had taken a shine to ASL at the age of nine which was, of course, completely absent by birthday #10. I think it was a good effort, if a bit simple when compared with the other four.

The Elephant Whisperers: While the story of this one was also relatively simple- a south Indian couple, Bomman and Bellli, tend to the health of a young elephant, Raghu, and others around him -what really came through for me was the old "film is a visual medium" angle. The cinematography of this one was excellent and was able to convey much of the story and the reality of their lives in Mudumalai National Park without any needed explanation, although both humans kept a running dialogue between themselves and their charges, Raghu and a later addition, Amma, so that we all knew the reasons for their respective involvement and how much the elephants meant to them. The camera took much time to examine the other sights of the park, including the everpresent gray langurs who were more than happy to help themselves to any food that the elephants weren't interested in eating. Probably the most interesting aspect to it was Bomman's insistence on speaking to Raghu as if the latter would understand him and, of course, he largely seemed to. Whether that was because of repetition or the fabled intelligence of the species is up for debate. You can't doubt their devotion to the animals in their care, though, and it's also open to question whether they looked on Raghu and Amma as beloved pets or beloved friends. I'm tempted to say the latter. Again, I really enjoyed the visuals of this one, even if the story itself was probably the thinnest of any of the available selections.

Stranger at the Gate: This was a very powerful story about a former Marine and veteran of the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan who learned to hate and fear Muslims and planned to act on those emotions by bombing the local Islamic center in his home town of Muncie, IN. It's a very straightforward depiction of learning to think of "the enemy" as subhuman in order to make it easier to commit violence upon them, only to have to return home and realize that "the enemy" are every bit as human as you are. Director Joshua Seftel had read Richard "Mac" McKinney's story in an Indiana newspaper years earlier, but decided he wanted to hear the side of the people that Mac had been intending to kill. His straightforward interviews with the Bahrami family, Jomo Williams, and Mac's ex-wife and daughter present a very crisp, documentary style that doesn't hinge on dramatic moments, but still provides both a level of tension and an excellent message of understanding from everyone involved. The visual storytelling is similar, in that it's presented in a very "investigative reporting" style but doesn't come with an agenda about anyone involved. Taking the time to interview the police who had become aware of Mac's plot was a really nice touch, as well. I was pretty much enthralled with this one and have it tagged as the eventual winner. More than any of the rest, this one is worth taking the half hour to absorb.

Haulout: This would probably be considered the most unusual of the offerings. Directors Evgenia Arbugaeva and Maxim Arbugaev arrived on an isolated beach in far northeastern Siberia when they were working on a documentary about the Chukchi people. There they discovered an equally-isolated marine biologist, Maxim Chakilev, who was studying walrus migration patterns and the impact that they're feeling from the lack of sea ice in the Arctic created by climate change. They decided to switch focus and stayed with him for the few weeks of his study, where they were completely hemmed in by almost 100,000 walruses and couldn't leave his tiny, ramshackle cabin. He was there to observe the walruses and they were there to observe him while they were all trapped together and you definitely get the mild claustrophobic sensation of being stuck there, but also the tragedy that has beset these creatures who are now all crashing into this beach, exhausted, because they have nowhere to rest on the open sea as they're accustomed to. They spend some time observing Chakilev, in turn, as he goes about both his work and simply existing in this distant corner of the world. No real dialogue occurs other than his taped reports (to be later transcribed) of what he's seeing and they don't bother to go into much detail, other than when he's stating the particulars of the corpses of the dozens of dead walruses left on the beach. They let the pictures tell the whole story, which was ideal in this circumstance.

The Martha Mitchell Effect: As one of the largely untold/misremembered aspects to the Watergate burglary and Richard Nixon's downfall, this was an interesting example of a mid-20th century case of political gaslighting. Former AG and Nixon campaign manager, John Mitchell's outspoken wife, Martha, was one of the first voices of outrage about the connections between the Watergate crimes and the White House. In a typically paranoid response, Nixon declared her Public Enemy #1 within his circle for a few months and tried to have her publicly discredited as "hysterical" and otherwise mentally ill. All of this story is told through archival footage from news programs and the later talk shows that Martha was interviewed on once everyone figured out that she had been telling the truth about the whole sordid affair. There are occasional quotes from various news figures involved at the time, both living (Connie Chung) and passed (Helen Thomas.) While I don't find myself particularly fascinated by rehashing Watergate yet again, it was interesting to see someone whom I'd only known as a minor detail in the whole event be revealed as someone that the media and public tried to ignore except as a source of entertainment, only to finally take her seriously for the couple years preceding her death, until eventually forgetting about her once they were past that. It's a sad commentary on the media's urge to flock to whatever is sensational at the moment, while looking askew at anyone who questions the propriety of what was going on in the august halls of Washington (New York Times, that's your cue...) I liked this one, even if the subject matter is a bit tired.

So, yeah, I think Stranger at the Gate was the runaway winner, both for technique and subject matter, but all of them were worth the time. Tomorrow: Live Action. (Still waiting for the "Unlive action" category.)