Oscar Documentary Predictions
Also: three great non-nominees, mascot harassment, a doc about rocks
I mentioned last month that I’ve been working my way through the Oscar nominees for feature documentaries in advance of tomorrow’s awards show. I’ve now seen all five, and am about halfway through the other ten films that made the shortlist.
If I were betting on the winner, I’d pick Black Box Diaries. It’s a compelling story about a woman, Shiori Itō, who seems legitimately heroic, but I don’t think it’s the best film of the bunch, nor is it my favorite. It’s directed by the main character, and is an adaptation of her own memoir, so the doc has a sort of claustrophobic subjectivity I found alienating, but that’s also probably the thing that gives it the widest appeal. It’s a righteous, triumphant, straightforwardly personal film: in memoirs, and presumably in adaptations of them, that’s often what audiences want. Personally, I think it would’ve been a better movie if someone else had directed it.
My favorite of the nominees is No Other Land, which I’d recommend to anyone if you can find it. (It’s currently playing in some arthouse theaters—including one in Portland and my favorite place in Corvallis, the Darkside.) In terms of pure artistic quality, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat is probably the best of the bunch. I wrote about both of those last month.
This month, I also watched the last two finalists I hadn’t seen. Porcelain War is excellent and visually striking, but a little narrow and one-note for my taste. Sugarcane, a National Geographic film, felt a bit too National Geographic, although its reviews make me think it might win.
My favorite documentaries I saw in February were two Oscar shortlisters that didn’t make the nominee cut, and an experimental art film that either wasn’t eligible for the Academy Awards or wasn’t considered.
One was the documentary Union, directed by Stephen Maing and Brett Story, which follows the rise of the first Amazon warehouse workers’ union in Staten Island. Unfortunately, it’s hard to actually watch it in America, because no distributor was brave enough to risk angering Amazon. (In a saner country, it would seem alarming that the two best documentaries I’ve seen from the last year were not distributed here out of fear of angering powerful interests.) I admit I’m biased toward the subject matter—I’m a proud union member from a proud union family, so I tend to root for workers struggling against rapacious, labor-hating employers who refuse to pay their employees a living wage. Friends whose opinions I respect have said the film seems one-sided, and I can see that. I don’t necessarily think of it as a flaw, myself—that’s largely an access issue, since Amazon wasn’t exactly a willing participant in the film. I appreciated Union’s nuance—no voiceover, very little onscreen text—and its impulse to observe rather than intervene, to focus on and reveal characters, showing the human side of a labor struggle.
Another was Hollywoodgate, directed by Ibrahim Nash’at, which follows a Taliban air force commander and his cronies for a year after the American withdrawal, as they repair the planes and helicopters the US military left behind and train pilots to fly them. The sheer fact of the director’s access to this story is stunning. It’s not necessarily a super innovative or arty film, but I think that’s to its credit, and a byproduct of the fact that the filmmaker seems to be working mostly solo and at constant risk of his life; throughout the film, guns are being pointed at the camera, and Talibs are openly discussing whether and when they should kill him. The editing is also sharp and sly, with an eye for subtly emphasizing the almost apocalyptic absurdity of the film’s content.
The last one was Last Things, a deeply strange and difficult-to-describe film that was recently recommended to me. As is the case with many (most?) great films, description seems both futile and beside the point, but I guess it’s about rocks? Evolution? The grand sweep of galactic time? All of the above? I don’t know. Just watch it. It’s only available on Kanopy with a library card. It also has possibly the greatest documentary ending I’ve ever seen.
Some other quick recs from the last month:
Arthur Russell, Iowa Dream — I bought this record on a whim a couple of months ago, and it’s been in (on?) my turntable ever since.
We’re a few months out from the best time of year in Portland: Pickles Season. The mascot slapped my ass at the last game I attended, so I appreciated their recently released hype video.
Speaking of sports, I told myself I wouldn’t talk too much or obnoxiously here about my beloved Philadelphia Eagles’ second deeply satisfying, dynasty-killing Super Bowl victory of the last seven years. But I can’t resist posting this well-timed Jordan ad that came out as soon as the Super Bowl ended. GO BIRDS.