Categories One-by-One: Documentary Short

[dws1982]

Don't have any instinct on this category. Didn't really like any of the nominees. How Do You Measure A Year? is extremely slight. In terms of style and content this is very basic. At least last year's film (which was much worse than this) tried for a little bit of style. Really strange that it even got shortlisted. The Martha Mitchell Effect is a bit of a Wikipedia film and suffers from the issue too common to this category in that it feels like a proof of concept to get concept for a feature. Haulout has the biggest point to make...being made by Russians might (unfairly) be a knock against it with some voters. I don't think that would make much difference, but I don't think voters really go for the bleak. The Elephant Whisperers is not my thing, but it's likable overall, well-shot, and doesn't feel like someone trying to get their feature financed. But Stranger at the Gate is the one that has an actual plot in a way that the others don't. It is 90% talking heads but it's undeniably compelling. This definitely should've been a feature in order to work and its director either needs to make that feature, or I really question his motives in framing the story this way if he doesn't make it. I think it's probably the worst one in this lineup but it does stand out from the others. I guess I would predict it, but I didn't find watching these films that helpful. (Last year watching them did lead me in the correct direction.)

[Mister Tee]

I enjoyed The Martha Mitchell Effect quite a bit, but there's an element of nostalgia in it, for me, as Watergate was the political story on which I cut my teeth all those years ago. (It made me think of a lady friend, for whom "Martha was right!" became a multi-use catchphrase.) Those Academy voters who share my chronology may be similarly disposed, but I wonder if younger folk may find the whole thing wildly distant.

During The Elephant Whisperers, I kept thinking how much my animal-loving wife would have adored it. Maybe it's just having Dumbo as an early reference point, but I've always found elephants the most adorable of the potentially lethal animal kingdom, and it's hard not to be moved in watching these elephants bond with one another and their caretakers. In an era of everybody-votes, the easy-access of Netflix may prove decisive for the film in this category.

I was something of a soft touch for How Do You Measure a Year? It wasn't anything revelatory, but it was moving to watch the young daughter grow up and become a more complicated human being as her age advanced.

I'm afraid I didn't enjoy Haulout very much. Its elliptical structure seemed to be straining for something arty, but it just left me feeling I was being denied a lot of the story. And the subject matter -- let's say, anonymous describing it as bleak doesn't even seem strong enough. This is a just a stone bummer, watching a bunch of defenseless animals lying dead on a beach. The end-card -- essentially "See? This is what climate change means" -- came as neither a surprise nor especially insightful; it actually bordered on smug (I'd rather have had some idea of what this guy was doing to alleviate the situation, rather than just telling us how awful it is.)

Stranger at the Gate had the potential to be an audience-grabber -- and some may find it still works for them -- but for me, this, too, felt too truncated. Inevitably, the key scenes that turn the central character from one kind of person to another are not recorded for the camera, and merely recounting them second-hand does nothing to make them credible. I mean, I accept that this event happened, and the people involved I presume are telling the truth, but I still find it a story that defies belief, that would have required an astonishingly convincing transformation scene. Without that, it feels like a bit too sweet a story to accept.

I guess I'd lean toward Elephant Whisperers or Stranger at the Gate as most likely winners, but my instincts aren't terribly strong, here.

[ksrymy]

Stranger at the Gate is the exact kind of cringe that Oscar voters eat up when it comes to race and religion. If that “you’ll be tattooed until people think you’re Black” short that was even worse than Green Book from the same year could win, this could too.

[OscarGuy]

I'm still working on my review of them all, but I'd rank them:

1. Haulout
2. Stranger at the Gate
3. The Elephant Whisperers
4. The Martha Mitchell Effect
5. How Do You Measure a Year? (Two duds from the same guys. I really don't understand how the Academy likes his documentaries.)

[gunnar]

I thought this category was a lot better than the animated category this year. None of them were exceptional, but all were at least decent. Here's how I would rank them based on personal preference.

Rankings
1. The Elephant Whisperers
2. The Martha Mitchell Effect
3. How Do You Measure a Year?
4. Stranger at the Gate
5. Haulout

[anonymous1980]

The nominees:

The Elephant Whisperers
Haulout
How Do You Measure a Year?
The Martha Mitchell Effect
Stranger at the Gate

The Elephant Whisperers is a sweet, well-made film about indigenous people in India who rescued an orphaned baby elephant. It is inspiring, feel-good and quite possibly the category's front-runner. Plus it's on Netflix so it will be widely seen.

Haulout is the opposite of The Elephant Whisperers. It is a dark, bleak environmental film about walruses crowding an island in a emote region in Russia due to the lack of ice to rest on during their annual migration, causing a lot of deaths. It is the most artfully done, beautifully shot and those walrus sounds are haunting. But it's also the bleakest among the nominees.

How Do You Measure a Year? is, on the other hand, the most lightweight among the nominees. Filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt filmed his daughter from age 2 to 18 on her birthday and ask her basically the same questions and record her answers year after year. It starts out cute and ends quite sweetly. But the in-between is less interesting than the filmmaker makes it out to be. I'd be shocked if this won.

The Martha Mitchell Effect is another Netflix documentary. It is about Martha Mitchell who was gaslit by the Nixon administration during Watergate (and was the subject of that limited series starring Julia Roberts). It is very interesting and the only political/historical one in the category but it's also the most clinical and least emotional.

Stranger at the Gate is about a war veteran with PTSD who planned to bomb a mosque in his neighborhood. I will not spoil the way this thing resolves but suffice to say, this is my favorite of the category and is also a strong contender for the win.

Rankings (personal preference):
1. Stranger at the Gate
2. Haulout
3. The Elephant Whisperers
4. The Martha Mitchell Effect
5. How Do You Measure a Year?

Rankings (in order of chances of winning):
1. The Elephant Whisperers
2. Stranger at the Gate
3. Haulout
4. The Martha Mitchell Effect
5. How Do You Measure a Year?