Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405 (2016)

Information

Siskoid
I don't normally review shorts, but I liked the Oscar-nominated documentary short Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405 enough that it warranted it. This 40-minute piece, available on YouTube (that's rare for Oscar contenders), is a portrait of Mindy Alper, a 56-year-old mentally ill artist whose tortured work is quite interesting in its own right, and also saved her from suicide or life-long institutionalization. In her late 20s, she became non-verbal, and her regaining that capacity has left her with a strange English dialect I found quite magical. While her story is both sad and hopeful, it was this that gave the film its mesmeric quality, a film that creates sympathy for its subject. It's hard not to want to hug this lady at the end of it. 6 years 3 months ago