Live Action Short Film Nominees (Oscars 2018)

Today I saw all five of the nominated films in the Live Action Short category. I'll present my reviews in the order the films were shown.

DEKALB ELEMENTARY (USA)

Based on true events, this film tells the story of a school shooting in Atlanta that was halted due to the kindness of the bookkeeper. When the intruder enters, he's agitated and angry, planning to kill and okay with being killed as a result. Once the woman at the front desk develops a rapport with him, he begins to calm down and show remorse for the terrifying situation he's caused for the whole community. The acting is phenomenal and the lesson is clear: Always start with compassion.

THE SILENT CHILD (UNITED KINGDOM)

Libby is a difficult child for her parents to handle—she's deaf and mostly unresponsive to her hearing family. They hire Joanne, who teaches Libby to communicate through sign language and her life is transformed. The issue is the mother who is reluctant to keep up with it because she wants her to integrate into regular school and get by on lip reading. Inspired by true events, the title cards at the end give evidence of many children who needlessly suffer loneliness because of this disability. Very moving and infuriating.

MY NEPHEW EMMETT (USA)

This film, again capturing an event that actually happened in Mississippi in 1955, tells of the vicious racism that impacted a peaceful black family who were simply living their lives. When Emmett comes to live with them from Chicago, he's unfamiliar with the dangers of being black in that part of the country, and he pays the price. Incredibly disturbing, but unfortunately something our country still needs to see.

THE ELEVEN O'CLOCK (AUSTRALIA)

The only comedy in the bunch, this film provides welcome relief in the form of a silly narrative about two men who claim to be the doctor in one shrink's office. The puzzle is figuring out who is the true patient. Although I solved the mystery relatively early into it, the dialog was still enjoyable and the actors charming, trying to ping-pong us into thinking one thing and then changing the next.

WATU WOTE: ALL OF US (GERMANY/KENYA)

The final film in the presentation told the horrific and beautiful (true) story of a bus attack along the Kenya/Somalia border. The Muslim attackers, desiring to take Christian lives for their treatment of Islam had a tough time distinguishing the Christians from the Muslims because the Muslims gave them their clothing to masquerade as one of their own. They protected their supposed enemy in the face of a group interpreting their religion in a twisted, irrational way. As a result, many lives were saved that would otherwise have been lost. I'll be thinking about this one for days.

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The Life Before Her Eyes

Tonight I saw a screening of The Life Before Her Eyes, starring Uma Thurman and Evan Rachel Wood.

If you could see your future life before your eyes, would it change how you live and love in the present?

At the root of this story, that's what's being asked of the audience.

We see a rebellious teenage Diana (Wood) bored with classes, free with sex and cold to her mother. When a Columbine-like shooting happens at her high school, and the killer is a boy who told her the previous day he was going to do it, we're forced to watch Diana and her best friend lobby for their lives. The scenes (some may call flashbacks; others may not) are brutally tension-filled and well-acted, which makes them incredibly hard to repeatedly sit through.

In parallel frames of the film, we see a thirtysomething Diana, now played by Thurman, in an unstable marriage with a bratty daughter of her own. She's struggling to get through the anniversary of the massacre and live her life in a meaningful way despite its dysfunctions.

The hard-to-believe part of the film was the fact Diana became a teacher. If I were the victim of a school shooting, the last place I'd probably want to spend every day would be at a school.

That said, the character in question and all of her actions are completely up for interpretation, so that last paragraph there could be erased, depending on how you digest one of the twists.

Regardless of where you think the story goes or went, no one can argue that the two leads aren't superb. Wood is an actress so gifted, her eyes convey her character's intentions and her body and words simply follow; Thurman brings a maturity I've never seen from her to the role, portraying 'damaged' in a painfully authentic and vulnerable way.

I would recommend this film as food for thought, if nothing else. And those of you who have seen it—I'd love to debate the ending with you.

E-mail me at tekatu2@gmail.com with your theories...