When you have time, watch the 40-minute Oscar-winning documentary about Brooklyn-born artist Mindy Alper, Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405 (2018). (The 405 is a California freeway. Its name's significance is explained in the film.)
Both film and animation, the documentary by director and writer Frank Stiefel allows Alper to talk openly and frankly about her life and her art — drawings and papier-mache sculptures that reflect her experience of and feelings about depression, anxiety, and other physical and mental problems. She speaks movingly about her dark and isolated childhood and her need for and ability to love. Interviews, reenactments, and artwork complement the story of Alper's life, which includes commitment to a mental institution, electro-schock therapy, and a 10-year period during which she could not speak.
A resident of Los Angeles, California, Alper is a remarkable and inspiring person whose acclaimed gift for art-making is a key to her survival.
Both film and animation, the documentary by director and writer Frank Stiefel allows Alper to talk openly and frankly about her life and her art — drawings and papier-mache sculptures that reflect her experience of and feelings about depression, anxiety, and other physical and mental problems. She speaks movingly about her dark and isolated childhood and her need for and ability to love. Interviews, reenactments, and artwork complement the story of Alper's life, which includes commitment to a mental institution, electro-schock therapy, and a 10-year period during which she could not speak.
A resident of Los Angeles, California, Alper is a remarkable and inspiring person whose acclaimed gift for art-making is a key to her survival.
Mindy Alper at Rosamund Felsen Gallery
Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405 Website
Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405 on FaceBook
Film Trailer
(My thanks to Hyperallergic, which published an article about the documentary, "This Oscar-Winning Short Doc Animates the Life of an Unpretentious Artist" (March 6, 2018).)
Note: Go to the film's Website to see the trailer (see link above); the full documentary is no longer available via YouTube, where I first watched it in its entirety.
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