Oscar Nominated Short Films Documentary 2014

This may be the hardest category to judge. None of the nominees are particularly enjoyable, nor should they be based their subject matter. My selections will be based on quality over importance of message:

5. Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1 – This is about as basic as documentaries come. You see the responders talk down a vet from suicide then they are interviewed about what they just experienced. There is talk of when they aren't successful, but it is never shown. I believe if it had there might've been a modicrum of resonance that the film was lacking. ⭐️⭐️

4. White Earth – There's a certain detachment in this film and it's subjects that I can't decide if it's positive. But there's also a slightly apocalyptic feeling to the whole film: from the perpetual flames of the oil fields at night, to the odd assortment of families living miles from civilization in campers, add zombies and I might as well be watching The Walking Dead. ⭐️⭐️

3. Joanna – I honestly would not have be able to tell this was a documentary if not for the category it was in. The documentation feels so invisible I refused to believe it was real. The relationship between the mother, ill with cancer, and her wise-beyond-his-years son is something I could've watched for hours and you really feel his pain as he is told the cancer is terminal (showing his reaction but not recording what is said is especially ingenious). ⭐️⭐️⭐️

2. Le Parka (The Reaper) ❤️– Probably the most shocking film nominated this year. Yes, it's about a man who has been slaughtering cows for the past quarter-century, but the way it's made makes it truly hard to watch. The cinematography never shoots anything head-on: whether it obscures the view of the killing chamber till its final moments or shoots something awful at an angle where you would normally not be looking, daring you to look at what's almost off screen. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

1.  Nasza Klatwa (Our Curse) – Maybe my admiration of this film has more to do with timing than anything else. After seeing four depressing documentaries in a row, then getting to the final film and it's called "Our Curse" and it's about first-time parents who have a baby born with a defect that causes him to stop breathing when he falls asleep, I might be more than a little relieved to have it be life-affirming. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Odds? Crisis Hotline