Written by George Tarrant, Edited by Anfisa Semenova

George Tarrant’s well-rounded analysis of this year’s Oscar documentary nominations, providing an intriguing outline of why each one might or might not win the category, as well as why you should keep these films in mind.

The Nominees

The Best Documentary Feature Film category at the Academy Awards has come a long way since its introduction in 1942. At the 15th Academy Awards, twenty-five films were nominated (shorts and features competed together) and four were proclaimed winners, most of which were products of the wartime propaganda machine. In the years since, the category has represented the Academy at its most inspired (Hearts and Minds or Harlan County, USA) and tired (My Octopus Teacher). This year’s crop of nominees tackles topics as varied as Big Pharma, Ukrainian orphanages, and volcanoes.

Nature documentary All That Breathes (Dir. Shaunek Sen) kicks off the nominated documentaries this year. Focusing on two brothers who dedicate their lives to saving the birds – mostly black kites – of increasingly polluted New Delhi, the film is packed to the brim with dreamily poetic imagery of animal life desperately adapting to the new conditions created by humanity. Unfortunately, a general aesthetic appreciation of All That Breathes is the best thing one can say about the film whilst also representing its greatest weakness. The film is a curiously impassive watch; the carefully framed visuals are cold and detached rather than emotionally involved. The way the film is presented creates a staged, deliberate feeling (including conversations that come across as more contrived than authentic) that eschews the spontaneity and messiness that typically ranks amongst the documentary form’s greatest strengths. The film becomes more intriguing once it foregrounds the political implications of its narrative. The two brothers – Saud and Nadeem – are Muslim and the film draws a parallel between the perilous situation of New Delhi’s bird life with the increasing persecution of Muslims within Indian society – including news reports about the introduction of the Islamophobic Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019. This potential allegory is only vaguely half-formed, which unfortunately typifies the film as a whole. Visually arresting but frustratingly aimless, All That Breathes flatters to deceive.

The film that should (but probably won’t) triumph come Oscar night is All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Dir. Laura Poitras; previous winner for the audacious Edward Snowden documentary Citizenfour). All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is both a hagiographical exploration of the life and times of photographer Nan Goldin and a present-day account of her activism against the Sackler family, the American billionaire dynasty that founded Purdue Pharma and have been widely criticised for their role in the ongoing opioid epidemic in the United States that has claimed close to a million lives since the turn of the millennium. The film represents somewhat of a departure for Poitras, who is known for making films that attack the domestic and foreign policy of the United States government. However, this discordance is merely surface level, as Poitras expertly weaves the personal and the political together, ensuring that Goldin’s bold and brave political activism is sent echoing back in time, revealing its imprint on her life and body of artistic work. Both elements of the film – which switches between past and present consecutively – are equally effective. The exploration of Goldin’s life (narrated by the artist herself) is accompanied by collages of her work and at its best is a moving and evocative tribute to an artistic community (New York City in the 1970s and 1980s) that flourished despite adversity. The present-day sequences compensate for their comparative lack of poignancy by rendering a rousing account of successful direct political action, in which Goldin and P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now) stage eye-catching sit-ins at art galleries – including MOMA and the Louvre – that accept Sackler grants and have galleries dedicated to the family. Artful, educational, and inspiring – All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is another feather in Poitras’ increasingly plumed cap and is one of the best films nominated in any category at this year’s Oscars.

Fire of Love (dir. Sara Dosa) is a touching and whimsical story of French volcanologist couple Katia and Maurice Krafft. They travelled the globe together studying and filming volcanic eruptions, one of which was the June 1991 eruption of Mount Unzen in Japan, which ultimately claimed both of their lives. This fact is not a spoiler (the film reveals the couple’s fate in its opening scenes) but rather threads through the entire film, with the Krafft’s shared love of volcanoes encompassing the beautiful and awesome images of impossibly luminescent lava flows, as well as the frightening and haunting footage taken amidst the aftermath of eruptions that devastate entire communities. The film is mostly made up of stunning footage from the Krafft’s archives, along with animated vignettes and typically idiosyncratic voice-over narration by Miranda July (which, although well delivered, is prone to over-explaining). As Mike D’Angelo discusses in his Alternate Endings review, the film doesn’t really live up to its amorous title. There are plenty of flames from the many volcanoes featured (which, in a nice touch, are credited like actors in the opening titles) but less fire in the relationship between Katia and Maurice, with the viewer getting little insight into their lives and personalities outside of their professions. Perhaps this reflects the couple’s total dedication and love for their work as they both often talk about volcanoes like they are friends or family members, the singularity of which still fascinates today.

The next nominee is A House Made of Splinters (Dir. Simon Lereng Wilmont), a well-meaning but rudimentary portrait of a temporary orphanage in Eastern Ukraine. Unless you have a heart of stone, the film is suitably moving (which, considering the subject matter, would be an impressive thing to mess up), especially in the scenes that casually present the children of the orphanage dealing with things that no one that young should ever have to face: alcoholism, abuse, and abandonment. These children are often forced to grapple with responsibilities that would normally be placed upon their parents or other adults. The film’s fatal flaw, however, is that no real point of view is provided for the miserable succession of these scenes, outside of the obvious: that the situation these kids are experiencing is pretty awful. To put it simply, the film lacks a thesis of any kind, which is the very thing that tends to mark a great documentary. We get no insight into the systemic societal issues in the country that have led to the myriad personal issues of the parents that can no longer look after their children. Add into the mix an overbearingly morose score and lazily generic visuals and one inevitably comes to the cynical conclusion that this film would not have come close to a nomination were it not for the Academy’s desire to address the ongoing war in Ukraine.

The final nominee is the thrilling but conventional Navalny (Dir. Daniel Roher), a behind-the-scenes insider account of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny’s life – both public and private – before, during, and after his near-fatal poisoning in 2020. The viewer is given incredible access to one of the bigger new stories of recent years. Much like Poitras’ Citizenfour, the biggest rush from watching Navalny is watching history occur as it happens, with the film structured and edited more like a high-adrenaline paranoid thriller rather than a documentary. The film falters in its disappointingly surface-level exploration of its titular subject. Navalny appears to be a likeable and admirable figure, yet the film omits any inclusion of his actual political positions (with the obvious exception of his anti-Putin activism). The film is incurious overall about its narrative’s thornier aspects. The sole brief scene in which the film half-heartedly addresses (and then dismisses) Navalny’s past association with far-right nationalist groups is emblematic of its safe and conventional approach to its subject matter. This approach is also evident in the film’s face value acceptance of the truth behind the motivations of certain parties that aid Navalny (around three of four different people stress that investigative journalism group Bellingcat is definitely not connected to MI6 or the CIA when a quick cursory Google search suggests the opposite). Despite these flaws, Navalny is a solidly crafted and consistently thrilling documentary that perhaps, in part because of its disappointingly conventional approach to its subject, seems very likely to take home the Oscar statue this year.

Conclusion

The nominees for Best Documentary Feature Film this year include one near masterpiece (All the Beauty and the Bloodshed), two well-crafted and entertaining works (Fire of Love and Navalny) and two well-meaning but underwhelming offerings (All That Breathes and A House Made of Splinters). However, perhaps even more than other films, documentaries speak to different people in very different ways and I would urge anyone even remotely interested in these films to give them a chance. The documentary form is often dismissed or belittled in the wider film world but, on Oscar night, one of these worthwhile films will be celebrated on the main stage.