Suicidal times ago

Oscar-nominated documentary shorts

I was impressed yesterday by the live-action nominees; today I've been blown away by the docs.

Crit

Program A

• Traffic Stop--An interesting portrayal of undeniably excessive use of force by a large white police officer against a 114-pound African-American woman, interesting in part because, though we seem to be invited to share the perspective of Breaion King--an upstanding citizen, an outstanding elementary school math teacher (with a class small enough to elicit the envy of 99.99% of American teachers)--that she was innocent of anything but a minor traffic violation, the video from the police cruiser and the audio from the arresting officer's body mic make it clear that, if not initially resisting arrest, she certainly refused to cooperate with the traffic stop.
  
  Now, yes, white officers have given African-American motorists abundant terrifying reason to doubt fair treatment even in a routine stop, but surely it's a better strategy at least to feign respect for the cop. King did not, did not comply readily with routine and reasonable requests (that she return to her car, that she pull her feet inside and allow the door to be closed), and escalated the emotional level of the confrontation as rapidly as did the cop.
  
  That said, once she gave the cop any excuse, he escalated the physical level readily, and, one senses from his later comments to other officers, with a certain relish, or at least satisfaction at having been able to subdue a feisty woman barely half his size.
  
  She admits to having speeded and says, "Fine, give me a ticket and let's move on," but that post facto attitude contrasts with her behavior on the scene. Was she really stopped for driving while black? Only the cop knows; it's a plausible guess, but no more than that. Did he react much more harshly than circumstances demanded, more harshly than could be justified for any danger he could reasonably have believed himself to be in? Absolutely. But the film is both a reminder that wrongs rarely arise from a single source and, more important, a testimonial to the need for automatic sound and video recording equipment on every police vehicle and officer in the country.
  
• Edith & Eddie--This is genuinely a one-sided story, though it's hard to imagine that we'd feel much differently about the titular nonagenarian couple being pulled apart--against their will and that of Edith's daughter who had cared for her for years, because another daughter has succeeded in getting a legal caregiver (who had never met Edith) appointed by a court--if we had extensive interviews with the 2nd daughter and the court appointee.
  
  Hard to imagine, but still: those interviews need to be in there. There is one hint, as the "good" daughter goes through her mother's mail, unable legally to open it since being removed as her caregiver (and why was that?), that there are problems with the couple's ability to maintain Edith's house--which daughter 1 claims daughter 2 just wants to sell in order to pocket the proceeds.
  
  A sad story for sure--and an engaging old interracial couple--but I would like to be trusted to weigh all (or at least more of) the facts.
  
• Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405--An absolutely stunning portrait of one Mindy Alper, a 50-something woman with serious mental issues, born of or more probably exacerbated by fraught relationships with a loving father who touched her only to keep her at a distance and a loving mother who, as a postpartum consequence of giving birth to a son, developed revulsion toward her daughter.
  
  So Mindy is a mess, but Mindy somehow, with the help of a pair of remarkable teachers and the support of a profoundly supportive therapist, has become a thrillingly proficient artist, a creator of exhilaratingly disturbing drawings and paintings, and most recently papier-mâché sculptures.
  
  She is also an accidental poet, her fractured syntax and mispronunciations opening language in a way that those who write poetry on purpose must envy. This is one of the most chilling and rewarding 40 minutes I've ever spent with a stranger, and if the Academy doesn't reward this film, I'm not sure what its purpose is.
  

Program B

• Heroin(e)--Golly! West Virginia may be even whiter than it was when I was there in the early '80s. Whiter, and way more dependent on drugs. That's no news, of course, but this film, its cutesy title accurate save for being singular rather than plural, brings both a range of human (though yeah, almost exclusively white) faces and a milligram of hope to the tragedy of coal country.
  
  Jan Rader, deputy chief of the Huntington Fire Department, for whom saving a life doesn't end when the Narcan kicks in; Necia Freeman, who on behalf of the Brown Bag Ministry, drives the streets at night giving meals and tracts to prostitutes, but not stinting on giving of herself as well; and Patricia Keller, judge of Cabell County Drug Court, whose motherly love for her charges would simply look ridiculous if you tried to portray it in fiction--heroine is no exaggeration for these women, and maybe an understatement. A feel-good twist on a feel-horrible story.
  
• Knife Skills--And another: ex-con is saved by the kitchen, and he has a crazy idea: hire a French chef and a sous chef, and then bring in 80 or so men and women with criminal records, train them to greet, seat, wait on, and cook for diners, and make them the rest of your staff for an ambitious French restaurant, Edwins, in Cleveland.
  
  It's not a straight line--the 80 shrinks to 60, and then to 30-something by graduation day, but some of the prodigals return for the 2nd class, and more to the point, the 30-some who have a job represent a statistical triumph, not to mention an emotional and moral one, when compared with the percentage of convicts with meaningful jobs six months out of prison.