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Review #405 of 365
Movie Review of The 2006 Academy Award®-Nominated Documentary Short Films (2006)
Where Viewed: Starz FilmCenter at the Tivoli, Denver, CO
When 1st Seen: 21 February 2007
Time: 7:35 p.m.
Note: In general, the three short documentaries screened in the category all suffered from a common problem. They were not short. Their subjects were interesting, but the idea of a short documentary, it seems is that the subject matter is, perhaps, too small of scope to warrant a full-length documentary, so a short is made instead. If the point then, is belabored for an excess of twenty minutes, the film tends to get a bit preachy and over-blown—not the desired effect. Editing each of these down to their most important and compelling 20-25 minutes would have improved them each immeasurably.
Movie Review of The Blood of Yingzhou District (2006) [NR] 39 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $13.75
Directed by: Ruby Yang
Despite its emergence as an economic power in the world and the construction of incredible cities, the world's largest dam and hydroelectric station, the world's first successful mag-lev train, and putting an astronaut into space, China endures some growing pains and problems in its most rural provinces where the people live in abject poverty, isolation, and cultural illiteracy of the worst kind. Such is the subject of The Blood of Yingzhou Disctrict, Ruby Yang's sad and frank look at several rural areas in the Anhui Province where thousands of people have been infected with HIV due to a lack of good education on the parts of the people and the health care workers. So desperate for income, the adults make a habit of sellint their blood. To speed the turn around time, the cells are filtered out and the plasma returned to the donor. Unfortunately, a lack of knowledge of HIV and, apparently, all other blood-borne pathogens, encouraged the health care workers to mix the plasma from among all the donors each day and re-infuse the cell-less mixture among all the donors. This apparently saves much time and money in the corrupt system which already has line monitors accepting money to allow some people to move up in the line each day to earn the money. Of course, HIV is not filtered out and if one person is infected, now everyone is infected. The whole scheme represents a black eye on the central government and the unscrupulous buyers of the blood. How could the people not know this was a bad idea given all the efforts world-wide to educate everyone about HIV/AIDS? Nonetheless, the rural villagers have had no clue. Even worse, thousands of children have been not only orphaned by the death of both parents to AIDS but shunned and/or abandoned by their superstitious communities believing them to be infectious and untouchable. This is indeed a shocking and sad portrayal of a problem that a great nation has not chosen to solve. Director Ruby Yang puts a face front and center on the problem in that of a little boy who lost both parents and is cared for from a distance and barely fed by an Uncle who is certain any contact with him will lead to his children becoming ostracized by others as well. Even when doctors come in to treat the AIDS victims, there is much to be done to convince others that the disease cannot be spread by casual contact. This is a tragedy worthy of international attention.
Movie Review of Recycled Life (2006) [NR] 38 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $14.00
Directed by: Leslie Iwerks
Written by: Mike Glad and Leslie Iwerks
The largest garbage dump in Central America is located near the capital city of Guatemala. Little did most people in the western hemisphere know that there would be a garbage dump in our region that was actually the home to more than 2,000 families, known collectively as the Guajeros. Some of these people have lived in the gigantic dump for three generations. Each day they break open bags and scavenge the trash alongside vultures for over 1,000,000 pounds of recyclable materials from which they draw their meager existence. Like any other classic case of people born into a foreign sub-world of poverty and hopelessness, they form a caste of closely knit people, many of whom do not believe in education for their children or a life outside of the refuse of others. There is something magical, almost like being a gold miner, in their wild-eyed expressions of how they make something from nothing and toil in filthy, toxic, tons of garbage to eek out their meager existence. Of course, the children must work too. How else to earn enough money to feed an entire family? This stunning and surreal look into the life of the Guajeros importantly reminds all consumptive cultures that one of the blights on our lifestyle is the trash we produce. We must created systems that move us all toward a 100% recyclable policy on all containers in which we ship goods; but, then, we must also build sustainable methods of recovering and recycling the containers in a safe and environmentally logical fashion. The Guatemalans have been torn between wanting to do something about the inhabitants of the dump for 60 years, while knowing full well the dump would have been filled far sooner had it not been for these unsung heroes and probably the world's largest collective recycling force. To allow the formation of a caste of unworthy people is a travesty for any civilized people, but it is easy to see how possible it would be to turn a blind eye. That is until the entire methane gas-emitting thing catches fire one day and pollutes the entire city with toxic gases and waste for a week. This is what it took for city leaders to finally do something. There is a stark lesson for us all here. We must decrease our trash, recycle effectively, and strive to ensure the safety and well-being of all people on our planet. Recycling is an important job, not one that should be thrust on people who have no education and no skills. It should be a regular, normally compensated position in every nation that produces any quantity of trash. The very idea of trash that is not 100% recycled is a stunning statement to the lack of regard we have, in general, for our world. This excellent documentary brings the point home in an unforgettable, albeit belabored, way.
Movie Review of Rehearsing a Dream (2006) [NR] 13 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $11.75
Directed by: Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon
National support for artistically gifted and talented students, particularly those in public schools hurt by budget cuts can seem few and far between. Often ostracized by their schoolmates, labeled as 'alternative', or, at the very least, misunderstood, these students feel alienated and alone. An annual Arts week attended only by the nations premier high school students selected from over 9000 who audition in excessof 9 categories of artistic endeavor from dance to musical theatre to visual arts helps combat these negatives for these most worthy future artists. They are a national treasure filled with creative bliss and energetic enthusiasm sufficient to create a kinetic frenzy of hope for a grander future and a world where all human beings are valued for their unique talent versus their tendency to adapt to the homogenous world of teenage life portrayed rather inelegantly on the plethora of adults-playing-teens sitcoms and dramas which have bombarded the airwaves for the past three decades. Filming the impact this special week supported by the National Endowment for the Arts has on these special students, became the passion of Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon the co-directors of short documentary, Rehearsing a Dream. The film is well-balanced in its emphasis on three things: the students, their art, and those adults who give up a week to work with these pre-eminent students in each discipline. For many, this is their first time to live and breathe in the company of so many like-minded and equally gifted artists. They go instantly from being the odd person out to being one of the gang. Several students are showcased for their ability to sum up the importance of the week on their lives in an elegant and meaningful way. While this film is interesting and enlightening, the weight of the topic certainly pales in comparison to many others made this year. Meanwhile, the directors might have done better to focus on fewer students for a longer time to show the impact of their growth in a more profound way.
The final nominee, Two Hands, by director Nathaniel Kahn was not screened. Based on only these four, the winner of the award should go to Recycled Life as it stood out in the end as being the best of short documentaries when it came to importance of subject matter, depth of character in the film, and use of the genre to effect change.
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