Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405 — Review
Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405, a title that encapsulates the feeling of safety the film’s subject, Mindy Alper, feels in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Mindy Alper is a Los Angeles artist who works with a marker pen, ink, or papier-mâché sculptures. The film, directed by Frank Stiefel, focuses on the importance art has in Ms. Alper’s life and won the Academy Award for Best Documentary (short subject) in 2018. Alper is a living artist in her mid-50s and the documentary shows how for a majority of her life she’s lived with severe depression and anxiety. She recalls in childhood being afraid of touching people or having people touch her out of fear that her touch was poisonous. In her late 20s, she suffered a mental breakdown so severe that she lost the ability to speak, write, or think in words for ten years. During this time, Adler continued to work on her artwork, which is highly successful in translating intense feelings of anxiety into a visual form. Adler’s art often focuses on human subjects and illustrating dark and deeply personal feelings that can typically be complicated to express with mere words.
After slowly regaining her use of speech, Adler received electroconvulsive therapy in 1994, which left parts of her brain permanently damaged. As Adler mentions the mental obstacles she’s experienced, her spirit remains largely hopeful. This documentary is just shy over 40 minutes yet Adler reveals a hefty amount of personal trauma, expresses how art has been a constant source of relief in her life, and she celebrates the people who have inspired her to get better. She gives immense praise and gratitude toward her art teacher Dorothy Cannon and calls her mother 2–3 times a day. Art for Adler is a form of therapy and a means in which she can understand and communicate with the outside world. This documentary shows the true healing power that can come from making art and is well worth your time.
This film is currently streaming on kanopy.com
More of Adler’s work can be found here
