MELBOURNE, 27 MARCH 2022: It’s impossible for people to visualize what life is if they are homeless and sleep at some obscure place. People with plenty have endless opportunities and complaints. They keep buying consumer goods, longish showers, stylish homes, and lots of food goes into the bin. The list can be long and mindboggling. Compared to this a homeless person has a tough life and each day is a challenge. This could be in any country. But here we have this Netflix documentary ‘Lead Me Home’, I saw by chance. Released last year (2021), the 40 minutes of real-life drama filmed from 2017 to 2020, in Los Angles, San Francisco, Seattle, Kos and Shenk films the day-to-day lives of about two dozen homeless people. A life of exclusion in the United States – the world’s sole superpower and a capitalist paradise.
The real characters tell us what led them to homelessness – depression after 9/11, disability, being transgender, raped… It is sad and heartbreaking as each one of the interviewed speak out their seamy slices of life. Sleeping in a car can be fun for someone but for a homeless person, it’s a tough life. At times no money, no food. The humanitarian crisis unfolds as we know what it means to be homeless. Help comes and gives some relief. The urge for a shelter remains primary.
The documentary makers say about 500,000 each night are shelterless. Reports indicate the number is going up. And, this happening in the world’s biggest economy, whose currency is the world’s currency. What and who is responsible for this human tragedy?
The directors are successful in making one think about this tragedy. This extraordinary, powerful, and soulful documentary’s theme needs a solution.
Directed by Pedro Kos and Jon Shenk it is nominated for the Best Documentary Short Subject at the 94th Academy Awards, 2022.
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