Hans’ Oscar Bites

Always a late entry as it takes forever to get through these thanks to some heavy-hitting subject matter, but overall I thought this was a decently solid crop.

The nominees are:

• The Alabama Solution
• Come See Me in the Good Light
• Cutting Through Rocks
• Mr. Nobody Against Putin
• The Perfect Neighbor

In order of preference:
5) THE ALABAMA SOLUTION (Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman)
An inside look at the conditions of the prisons in the Alabama correctional system. The guerrilla-style techniques in filming this doc, largely using footage taken by inmates with their contraband cell phones, is pretty impressive and nauseatingly effective at relaying the dire and horrifying conditions of these facilities. Ultimately I had a little bit of a tough time following the overarching narrative other than “this is fcking terrible” and “Kay Ivey really fcking sucks”, but the recurring characters we meet make this a compelling watch.

4) CUTTING THROUGH ROCKS (Sara Khakiand Mohammadreza Eyni)
A doc following the story of a Sara Shahverdi who becomes the first woman in her Iranian village to sit on the city counsel. This is the kind of protagonist documentarians dream of finding, someone with a compelling story, charm for days, and a narrative surrounding her that allows the story to unfold organically. Shahverdi’s advocacy on behalf of women in her village gains national notice, and given the incredible timeliness of Iran on the world’s stage, all the more relevance.

3) MR. NOBODY AGAINST PUTIN (David Borenstein, Pavel Talankin, Helle Faber, and Alžběta Karásková)
A teacher and event coordinator at a small school in the Urals recounts how his job goes from fun and fulfilling to demoralizing and degrading as he and his fellow teachers are forced to teach and encourage the students to eat up Russian propaganda about the Ukraine war. Bless this guy and all the hard work he does in resisting the rising tide of authoritarianism in his own unique way, including blasting Lady Gaga’s national anthem during the morning propaganda assembly. Truly the most remarkable thing about this documentary, though, is how the pseudo-antagonist of the film, a propaganda-spouting history teacher who admires Stalin, manages to both look and act like the most cartoonishly evil Russian oligarch caricature I have ever seen. You can’t get better casting than that.

2) THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR (Geeta Gandbhir, Alisa Payne, Nikon Kwantu, and Sam Bisbee)
The tragedy and aftermath of the ultimate Florida Karen “standing her ground”. Told almost entirely through bodycam footage, this story about a quiet Florida neighborhood that turns upside down when our featured “neighbor” also manages to strike a particularly timely chord in this day and age of what it means to responsibly wield the Second Amendment and the idea that many who tout its importance have a “rules for thee and not for me”. The stars of this by far are the community of neighbors that come together in support of the kids most affected by this tragedy; my favorite compelling and nostalgic moment comes when one of the officers asks one of the neighbor moms “Are any of these your kids?”, gesturing at all the neighborhood kids gathered round, and she proudly goes “Oh they’re all mine.”

1) COME SEE ME IN THE GOOD LIGHT (Ryan White, Jessica Hargrave, Tig Notaro, and Stef Willen)
The story of the life and times of poet Andrea Gibson, as they struggle through their terminal ovarian cancer diagnosis with the support of their partner. Andrea is an incredibly captivating documentarian subject, and this was one of those docs that ends up being so uplifting in the main subject’s steadfast determination even despite the awful diagnosis, you just end up going with the flow of their life and how they take the things that come their way with such aplomb. Truly the most interesting thing to me personally was also seeing Andrea give a poetry concert; I was like, why aren’t there more of those?? Why don’t we treat poets the same way we treat other artists? The cherry on top, of course, was the woefully unnominated original song by Sara Bareilles and Brandi Carlile, Salt Then Sour Then Sweet. This could be a dark horse winner.

• WILL WIN: The Perfect Neighbor
• COULD WIN: Come See Me in the Good LIght