By Ishana Sen Das
Directed by Lucca Vieira, Parkland: Stories from the Survivors, is a short documentary centering around a high school shooting in Parkland, Florida on Valentine’s Day 2018. One year after the fatal shooting at their high school, the film shares the perspectives of five Stoneman Douglas High School students who witnessed or were affected by the shooting. They talk about the experience itself, as well as the aftermath of the situation and the effect that it had on their community.
The documentary begins with students of the Parkland high school describing how normal the day felt before it spiraled into a tragedy. Their stories take a darker tone as they move onto describing the shooting. The students go on to describe how much support they received from the community at such a difficult time, and how their collective grief brought everyone together. One girl, Giulia, describes the lingering fear from the incident that still revisits her from time to time. The film ends with a shot of the high school with Giulia’s voice saying “you’ll try to move on but it’s always still gonna be there.”
I think the documentary would have benefitted from a more diverse array of perspectives – including the voices of parents and teachers, that could have added a lot more to the retelling of the event. Certain clips that were meant to recreate the event seemed out of place (especially the shot of cafeteria chicken nuggets) and took me out of the viewing experience. Regardless, the students gave meaningful accounts of the incident and the aftermath. The film brought voices and faces to a tragedy that unfortunately occurs much too often.
I would give this film a 4/5
Ishana is a junior at Duke University. She is majoring in Literature with a minor in Cinematic Arts and Environmental Science. She enjoys watching and writing about films, as well as learning about filmmaking and production.
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