This year’s selection of Oscar nominated short documentaries handily address the theme of families braving the unimaginable.
JOANNA is a quiet meditation on the beauty of life and parenting, and the immense struggle of having to leave either too soon. The film follows Joanna at home with her family, relishing her last days with her child, husband, and nature, as she suffers the later stages of cancer. She suffers, but she will not be crushed. Joanna’s unwavering spirit is a centerpiece of beauty in the film, second only to the shining light of her son, John, a precocious and sensitive little boy with more questions than time to ask them. The most touching moment in the film comes when John, for a homework assignment, asks his mother what’s her favorite thing, “alone, without anybody.” She insists that it’s spending time with him, that she doesn’t like to be alone, and he agrees; he can’t think of anything better. JOANNA is a film without agenda, just a powerful reminder of how precious our loved ones truly are.
Rather than concentrating on beauty, Our Curse focuses on the brutal hardships of familial illness. This film is the deeply harrowing, self-documented, story of two young parents whose child was born with Ondine’s Curse, or CCHS, a rare, incurable, congenital disorder that causes a person to stop breathing while they sleep. It is just a snapshot of the near-Sisyphean life before them. Director and father Tomasz Sliwinski turns an unafraid camera towards his home life, employing long, unyielding tripod shots that are almost unbearable to watch. The effect is raw and awe inspiring. Before us unfolds the first year of young Leo’s life, life on a ventilator, life with a tracheotomy, yes — but also, life as a baby, life with curiosity and vigor. One is left with the feeling that despite the horrors that life often serves us, it’s worth it to try.
A dark and beautifully photographed film, The Reaper documents the life of Efraín Jiménez García, who slaughters bulls for a living. Approximately 500 bulls a day, 6 days a week, for over 25 years. The film is simply made with a powerful effect; it is comprised of gorgeous, but disturbing shots of the factory, and an eloquent voice over from García, speaking his views on life and death. He expresses empathy for the bulls, saying they “cry like humans” at death, but later says he developed his nickname, “The Reaper,” because of his affinity for killing. The film’s message hits hard in its closing notes; there is a sequence with García at home in a cheerful purple sweatshirt, a color that comes into stark contrast with the bloody red palette of the rest of the film. He watches his many children pick apart a roast chicken with their hands, he cannot seem to bring himself to speak. We see here the conflict introduced by a human capacity for emotion, his children must eat, he can feed them, yet pain is apparent in Efraín’s eyes as he zips up his hoodie, boards a bus, and returns to the slaughter house.
WHITE EARTH takes the opposite approach, discussing not the harsh realities of a job necessary for survival, but rather the hopes and dreams of those affected by the chosen careers of their loved ones. Children have a certain innocence and purity of speech that makes their views on adult hardships especially poignant. That is why director J. Christian Jensen’s choice to let middle schoolers’ musings dominate his film on the oil boom in White Earth, SD is so effective. Jensen documents those left behind. The kids, the wives. Their stances are not practical or carved out of many years of suffering like one might expect from a hardened oil worker. They simply wish for better things. One young girl hopes that maybe, when she’s very old, South Dakota will go back to normal. This short and honest film shows the ones left behind, who are simply making the most of it.
Ultimately, this can be said of all of this year’s documentaries, everyone is just making the most of it. All of the filmmakers have captured this indomitable spirit in various hardships, far reaching parts of the world, and vastly different styles, but the constant of humanity remains.
The Oscar Nominated Short Films: Documentary will play in New York City at the IFC Center and will be available on VOD in February. For tickets and more click here.
