A brief Micro-post review and Decinemal rating of 3 recent Oscar nominated documentary features I watched. 2 of them won the Oscar and the one that didn’t should have…
Netflix 2019
Intriguing on a political and cultural level… to a degree. I was mostly engaged, but found it cared a lot more about how important its subject was than I did. Its format was also fairly basic: talking head experts, interviews with the real people involved and some stats. It is really all about how unusual it was for heavy industry in the US accepting another culture into its Conservative world. We are asked to be pleasantly surprised it worked so well, which is dubious racist… but, if it changed the viewpoint of some gong-ho white Americans then all for the good.
Decinemal Rating: 65
Netflix 2020
This came recommended by a friend before nominated, so I watched it with interest on a cold lockdown morning one day. The preise was intriguing and the underwater photography quite extraordinary. It bothered me what this guys motivation truly was, however. His story was equally cute and disturbing. My question was how manipulated were the images we were seeing compared to the story being told? There is a suggestion that the animals were not treated well, which naturally diminishes the appeal of this gorgeous to look at film. I also thought its message was less deep than we were being led to believe. Yet, it won the Oscar over the next film, which is slightly baffling and absolutely the wrong decision.
Decinemal Rating: 66
Netflix2020
Concerning an experiment in care for the disabled community that was way, way before its time. An absolute revelation to learn that, before the rest of the World truly understood how to treat, care for and respect people with differences both physical and mental, there was a place where they did it for themselves free of patronising “able” adults. It is truly moving to see how even the most severely affected individuals found solidarity, friendship, romance and endless fun despite all the hardships they faced. It is almost as if in this magical place they discovered and even invented the ways to ignore the ignorance, intolerance and prejudices faced by lesser able people of all ages. In the more enlightened times of the 2020s it seems fairly obvious that people need love, attention and understanding to thrive. Contact that to the vibe in the 1970s when this happened and it is a mind-blowing juxtaposition of how much we then had to learn about disability. Well crafted, edited and effortlessly emotional and entertaining.
Decinemal Rating: 74
The last mentioned film did not win an Oscar, yet it is far superior to both the previous mentioned “winners”. Check it out if you can. It’s on Netlix. It fact all of them are. So hats off to them for being the champion of a lot of the best documentary film-makers.
The Wasteland 