The Oscar Nominated Documentary Shorts
The art theater in town that I go to/live played a program of the Oscar nominated shorts this past week. It was really cool to see these because most people don't even know what these movies are about, let alone see them. Here's my thoughts on the documentary shorts. I'll do live action and animated later.
Documentary
The Death of Kevin Carter: Casualty of the Bang Bang Club
This is your standard "talking heads" documentary about a guy who's deified by some and is not so hot for others. In this case the guy is Kevin Carter, a South African photographer who was a member of the Bang Bang Club, a group of photographers who shot photos of hardcore poverty in Africa. His most famous photo is of a vulture looking upon starving Sudanese girl stumbling to a food distribution center. He wins a pulitzer for the powerful image, but attracts controversy when it is revealed that he failed to help the little girl out. The experience devestates him so much that he later commits suicide.
The documentary is flat, mainly due to the talking heads approach. That wouldn't be so bad, but most of the talking heads are his friends or other members of the Bang Bang club, so the movie ultimately dwindles down to "Look how awesome this guy was and wasn't it awful that all those people drove him to commit suicide?" A documentary that explores the moral dillema of a photojournalist (to help or to shoot) in more depth would have been better.
God Sleeps in Rwanda
This documentary examines how the genocide in Rwanda examines the effects of the 1994 genocide on Rwandan women. There are both bad effects (most women's husbands were, leaving them without any means of support, Rape was used as a method of warfare, leading to widespread HIV infect, ya know very bad stuff) and surprisingly, some good effects. Since the genocide left Rwanda 70% female, women were given all sorts of rights they didn't have before, as a matter of necessity. Since I used to live in Rwanda, the documentary was very touching. To see the country so ravaged is really heartbreaking. I do wonder whether women are really flourishing in a country whose positions of power are still occupied by men.
The Mushroom Club
In my opinion, this was the best documentary of the bunch. It examines how the the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima changed the city and Japan in general. You can see a lot of parallels with America and 9/11 in the way that, while the people of Hiroshima treat the event with reverence (paper crane ceremonies and the like), most of their time is spent pretending it didn't even happen. It's also great to get a different perspective on the bomb. While high school taught me that the bomb was dropped so WW2 would end and Robert McNamara says that America actually saved lives by dropping the bomb (when you compare how many people would have died if the war had gone on for a few more years with the amount of people who died in the blast), most Japanese have a much different perspective, one where thousands are vaporized instantly and even more die/suffer major mental and physical defects from from radiation poisoning. Hundreds died when they swam in the river, hoping it would protect them from the radiation, when in fact it was full of radiation, killing everyone who went in. The best voice was graphic novelist Akiyuki Nosaka, whose Grave of the Fireflies is about the effects of the bomb.
A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corman
This was what won the academy award and I can see why. It's a rose colored glasses look at an even that "changed America." It also has the best soundtrack, probably by someone who scores feature length hollywood movies like Seabiscuit or Cinderella Man. Those are good movies to make a comparison, cause this is about one of those events that "brought America together." Norman Corman was poet whose poetry radio show CBS in the 30's was a big hit. The documentary spends about half its time talking about his rise to the most respected radio man in the nation. The other half talks about his radio show "A Note of Triumph" which aired the night that Germany surrendered to America. From the clips played in the movie, it sounded like a very eloquent speech given by a very eloquent speaker. It's a very good speechification of the mood of a country on the night they just won the hardest fought war in its history. Of course, America still had to fight Japan, which makes this movie an interesting companion piece to The Mushroom Club. Overall, this movie had about the same effect on me as Seabiscuit or Cinderella Man, good entertainment, but c'mon. Fifty years people are going to make a movie about how American Idol brought America together. Your grandparents'll love it though.
Overall, I thought that all of these movies are solid, but also very conventional and a bit bland, a lot like the Oscars themselves. To be expect I s'pose. I give the award to The Mushroom Club.
Documentary
The Death of Kevin Carter: Casualty of the Bang Bang Club
This is your standard "talking heads" documentary about a guy who's deified by some and is not so hot for others. In this case the guy is Kevin Carter, a South African photographer who was a member of the Bang Bang Club, a group of photographers who shot photos of hardcore poverty in Africa. His most famous photo is of a vulture looking upon starving Sudanese girl stumbling to a food distribution center. He wins a pulitzer for the powerful image, but attracts controversy when it is revealed that he failed to help the little girl out. The experience devestates him so much that he later commits suicide.
The documentary is flat, mainly due to the talking heads approach. That wouldn't be so bad, but most of the talking heads are his friends or other members of the Bang Bang club, so the movie ultimately dwindles down to "Look how awesome this guy was and wasn't it awful that all those people drove him to commit suicide?" A documentary that explores the moral dillema of a photojournalist (to help or to shoot) in more depth would have been better.
God Sleeps in Rwanda
This documentary examines how the genocide in Rwanda examines the effects of the 1994 genocide on Rwandan women. There are both bad effects (most women's husbands were, leaving them without any means of support, Rape was used as a method of warfare, leading to widespread HIV infect, ya know very bad stuff) and surprisingly, some good effects. Since the genocide left Rwanda 70% female, women were given all sorts of rights they didn't have before, as a matter of necessity. Since I used to live in Rwanda, the documentary was very touching. To see the country so ravaged is really heartbreaking. I do wonder whether women are really flourishing in a country whose positions of power are still occupied by men.
The Mushroom Club
In my opinion, this was the best documentary of the bunch. It examines how the the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima changed the city and Japan in general. You can see a lot of parallels with America and 9/11 in the way that, while the people of Hiroshima treat the event with reverence (paper crane ceremonies and the like), most of their time is spent pretending it didn't even happen. It's also great to get a different perspective on the bomb. While high school taught me that the bomb was dropped so WW2 would end and Robert McNamara says that America actually saved lives by dropping the bomb (when you compare how many people would have died if the war had gone on for a few more years with the amount of people who died in the blast), most Japanese have a much different perspective, one where thousands are vaporized instantly and even more die/suffer major mental and physical defects from from radiation poisoning. Hundreds died when they swam in the river, hoping it would protect them from the radiation, when in fact it was full of radiation, killing everyone who went in. The best voice was graphic novelist Akiyuki Nosaka, whose Grave of the Fireflies is about the effects of the bomb.
A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corman
This was what won the academy award and I can see why. It's a rose colored glasses look at an even that "changed America." It also has the best soundtrack, probably by someone who scores feature length hollywood movies like Seabiscuit or Cinderella Man. Those are good movies to make a comparison, cause this is about one of those events that "brought America together." Norman Corman was poet whose poetry radio show CBS in the 30's was a big hit. The documentary spends about half its time talking about his rise to the most respected radio man in the nation. The other half talks about his radio show "A Note of Triumph" which aired the night that Germany surrendered to America. From the clips played in the movie, it sounded like a very eloquent speech given by a very eloquent speaker. It's a very good speechification of the mood of a country on the night they just won the hardest fought war in its history. Of course, America still had to fight Japan, which makes this movie an interesting companion piece to The Mushroom Club. Overall, this movie had about the same effect on me as Seabiscuit or Cinderella Man, good entertainment, but c'mon. Fifty years people are going to make a movie about how American Idol brought America together. Your grandparents'll love it though.
Overall, I thought that all of these movies are solid, but also very conventional and a bit bland, a lot like the Oscars themselves. To be expect I s'pose. I give the award to The Mushroom Club.
posted by Jesse @ 12:07 AM
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