Through chemistry

Oscar-nominated documentary shorts, program B

I have a complaint. Well, maybe more a plaint, sans com. In past years the Criterion has devoted both of its small screening rooms to the shorts, and shuffled the showtimes from day to day, creating options for seeing all 4 programs without, say, having to stay up way past my bedtime fighting off the drowsies during the annual Holocaust documentary. This year they're using just one screening room, and only the popular animation program gets more than one time slot. So there I was for 2 of the 5 nominees in this category at 10pm. Have I ever mentioned how hard it is being me?

Crit

• Chau beyond the Lines--When we first meet him, Chau lives in a camp in Ho Chi Minh City for victims of Agent Orange; as for most of his cohort, his body is warped into a shape that invites unwelcome thoughts of Tod Browning. But he gets around on one relatively normal leg, another bent so far under and behind that is seems foreshortened, and two short arms with semifunctional hands. He gets around, and he sketches, and he dreams. "I've had a lucky life so far," he says.
  
• Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of Shoah--This is actually a meta-Holocaust film: given 2 years to make a film no longer than 2 hours long, Lanzmann spent 5 years assembling his material and another 5 wrestling it into the 9½ hours of Shoah, all the while lying to his producers about how close he was to finishing. Fascinating, sad, unexpectedly funny, awe-inspiring. I guess after all this time I really need to watch the film behind the meta.

For the other nominees, click here.