Thursday, February 21, 2019

2019 Oscar Shorts Documentary - In Short "Period. End of Sentence" from India Should Get the Oscar

This year's Oscar race for best Short Documentary has 3 nominees from the USA, one from the UK and one from India "Period. End of Sentence."  My vote goes to India's enlightening and uplifting doc.  In short "End Game" (USA) concerns individuals with terminal illnesses nearing the end of their lives.  The film focuses on several individuals, their families, their physicians and health care providers.  There's plenty of compassion and various options and obstacles being considered from various vantages.  This doesn't feel like un-chartered territory and focuses too heavily on one family's  partial denial & unwillingness to accept the inevitable. The film is too invasive into this family dealing with their loved one's final days and their grief.  "A Night at the Garden" (USA) is a 7 minute archival film taken in 1939 at Madison Square Garden, a.k.a. "the Garden." It's an all too real  nightmarish gathering of the Nazi party.  The main speaker calls out amidst roaring cheers the heinous goals of the party to exterminate Jews and "return" the country to its Arian rightful heirs.  "Lifeboat" (USA) is a humanitarian film dealing with the immigrant crisis from N. Africa.   The German Captain Jon Castle operates a non-profit vessel that scours the Mediterranean Sea to rescue immigrants fleeing & hoping to reach Europe in overcrowded, harrowing rafts.  The human crisis is  up close & personal leaving the audience stunned with dread, guilt and ongoing apathy.  "Black Sheep" (UK) is an artfully re-enacted doc. interspersed with interviews by Cornelius, a black London teenager of Nigerian born parents.  The family moves to a suburb outside the urban violence only to encounter racism & violence in their new surroundings.  Cornelius seeks redemption for his acts of rage, violence & physical transformation towards Caucasion features to gain acceptance from his peers in lieu of paternal love.  The doc. feels hollow & Cornelius shallow.  "Period. End of Sentence."  (India) is a doc. that charters new issues dealing with a timeless subject - menstruations.  The film is set in a village not far outside New Delhi.  Menstruation is "taboo," "dirty," "a woman's problem" and  keeps young women out of school once they start their menses due to lack of privacy and effective, hygienic means for containing their flow.  It's such a taboo subject it's not discussed betwixt mothers & daughters, sisters or friends.  Women are banned from temples of worship during their menses.   When young men were asked what a period was, the only answer was "a the time slot of class."  The uplifting doc. introduces  a revolutionary procedure for women to manufacture, mass produce & sell a sanitary pad that is a panacea for many of their neighboring women.  Women enter into the workforce for the first time, their opportunities expand exponentially with a sanitary product easily taken for granted by women in most industrialized countries.  This doc. short is an Oscar winner, period.

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