Published January 30, 2020 by Robert W. Butler at Butler’s Cinema Scene
(Opening Jan. 31 at the Glenwood Arts, Screenland Armour and Tivoli at the Nelson)
“LIFE OVERTAKES” (Sweden/USA, 39 minutes) My rating: B+
In recent years Sweden has become a haven for refugees fleeing unrest in the Balkans and some of the former Soviet republics. But the children of these displaced families are paying a price.
Resignation Syndrome is a previously undiagnosed condition in which young children retreat from the insecurities of their world by going into a sort of coma. We meet youngsters like Daria, Karen and Leyla who gradually slipped into a dream world. Now they must be bathed and exercised by their parents; most are nourished through feeding tubes.
Horrifying and heartbreaking, John Haptas and Kristine Samuelson’s film shows what these families have gone through. Daria’s parents were targeted by death squads for running an internet system independent of the government. Both were tortured and imprisoned; the mother was raped.
But in Sweden they are uninvited guests who must repeatedly apply for political asylum, and it is that uncertainty about the future — especially the possibility of deportation back to a country that wants to kill them — that triggers Resignation Syndrome in these youngsters.
But get this…once the family is granted permanent asylum in Sweden, the children start improving. As one doctor observes, the parents’ almost mystical sense of hope is somehow transmitted to the sleeping child.
“LEARNING TO SKATEBOARD IN A WARZONE (IF YOU’RE A GIRL)” (UK, 39 minutes) My rating: B
For more than a decade a private school in the heart of Kabul, Afghanistan, has quietly defied that country’s conventional thinking about the role of women by educating girls.
Here girls get the expected instruction in reading, writing and arithmetic, as well as daily lessons in personal courage and standing up for one’s rights.
But as Carol Designer’s doc reveals, there’s more. The girls are taught to skateboard in a large gymnasium outfitted with ramps and platforms for various stunts. Yeah, they still wear head scarves and are pretty much covered from head to foot, but now they also sport helmets and knee pads.
All this is done on the QT. Some of the instructors refused to have their faces shown in the film…they live in a dangerous world. Others, like the tough lady in charge of the school, introduces a bit of swagger into their lives: “I’m not afraid of anything except God.”
“IN THE ABSENCE” (South Korea, 28 minutes) My rating: B
Yi Seung-Jun’s riveting and saddening film focuses on the 2014 sinking of the Korean ferry Sewol; more than half its nearly 500 passengers died.
This doc — which combines news footage, cel phone videos shot by the victims (most of the dead were high school students) and interviews with survivors and rescuers — is essentially a scream of rage.
The Korean Coast Guard was patently unprepared to deal with the disaster, the captain abandoned the ship early on, and passengers were told to stay in their rooms instead of going to the deck where they might have a chance pop rescue.
Meanwhile Korea’s president, Park Geun-hye, spent the morning in her bedroom where officials had a hard time communicating with her; radio and telephone calls reveal that officials were more concerned with saving face than saving lives. Some of the bodies were not retrieved until months after the disaster.
The ensuing scandal forced Park out of office; parents of the dead students are still looking for answers.
“WALK RUN CHA-CHA” (USA, 21 minutes) My rating: B
In just 21 minutes Laura Nix’s “Walk Run Cha-Cha” gives us a great love story and a family saga filtered through the prism of ballroom dancing.
Paul and Millie Cao live in Los Angeles; their passion is amateur ballroom dancing. But as we learn in their voiceover narration, their story hasn’t been an easy one.
In the years after the Communist takeover of Vietnam, Paul fell in love with Millie. When he fled to the West — first to Taiwan, then the USA — he promised to keep her in his thoughts. When he left the two had been dating for only six months; they would not be reunited for six years.
They have raised a family, brought his aged parents to the States and established solid careers (she’s an auditor for the state of California, he’s an engineer).
And they dance. Paul says it allows him to “use my body to reach another level of freedom.” Millie says her co-workers would not recognize her doing a sultry tango on the dance floor.
“Walk Run Cha-Cha” may be accused of superficiality; it doesn’t dig too deeply into its subjects’ personalities. But by ending with a 5-minute dance sequence this little gem goes straight to our emotions.
“ST. LOUIS SUPERMAN” (USA, 28 minutes) My rating: B+
Bruce Franks organized protests in the wake of the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson MO. But that wasn’t enough…he ran for and was elected to the Missouri General Assembly as a representative from St. Louis.
Smriti Mundhra and Sami Khan’s film follows the newly-minted politician as he battles to push through the legislature a bill that would declare the shooting deaths of teens as a public health crisis. Franks has a personal dog in the fight: In 1991 his older brother Christopher, only 9, was killed by a stray bullet.
We see Franks at work in Jefferson City, but we also catch him meeting with constituents back home in St. Louis, where he trades in a jacket and tie for shorts, T-shirt and baseball cap. In one illuminating segment he performs a rap battle with an opponent who accuses him of selling out by going into politics.
We also see Franks interacting with his own son and daughter. He’s raising them with his mother (their mother isn’t mentioned) and he seems like a first-class Dad.
“St. Louis Superman” is a gut punch of hope; Bruce Franks seems almost too good to be true. Alas, a postscript notes that he’s dropped out of politics to deal with the trauma of all the death he’s seen.
| Robert W. Butler
