“I want to tell you a little bit about my son,” says Sandra Charbonneau at the beginning of Adam Oppenheim and Samuel-Ali Mirpoorian’s winning documentary short Saving Superman. This is not just a story about the heroes you walk by on the street every day, but it celebrates the unshakeable strength formed by communities all across the country that recognize that our differences are our greatest strengths. A hero should not be identified just for physical prowess but for their humanity, compassion, and ideals. Oppenheim and Mirpoorian’s portrait of Jonathan Charbonneau proves that not all heroes wear capes–but sometimes the sight of one is truly inspiring.
Sandra Chabonneau thought that Jonathan was deaf for over year after he was born in 1966, but she wasn’t satisfied with just that diagnosis. “I took him everywhere. I wanted answers,” she says. “They couldn’t give me answers, because there were none.” Not only do we meet Jonathan and Sandra, but we meet important people in his life like Julie, who helps Jonathan through moments in his life if they need some extra navigating. When she explains how she and Jonathan met, you immediately know what kind of person he is, but you can also see how affectionately she speaks him.
When Jonathan’s apartment building is bought by a new owner, his rent skyrockets, and he stresses about how this will affect his routine. We hear more and more about how these sudden changes can shake up a person’s entire world, but Jonathan likes stability and consistency. What the community does for him goes beyond anyone’s expectations, and Saving Superman proves that there is true, unbridled kindness in the world. When you see someone in need and you have the means to help them, you help there. It’s instinctual, and Oppenheim and Mirpoorian’s film is open-hearted and tightly directed. They let Jonathan speak for himself on his own terms.
The character of Superman has been embodied by many men over the years. James Gunn’s summer hit proves that morality, compassion, and empathy are things we hold dear to us, but there is something even more exceptional when we see Jonathan in his cape. Early in this short, we see Jonathan in the costume from behind, as the sunshine comes through the light material of his cape. Something about that image goes beyond the hopeful ideal of a superhero from another planet. He’s real. He’s here. He lives in all of us.
Saving Superman is the recipient of this year’s Critics Choice Documentary Award for Best Short Documentary. You can view it below via Switchboard Magazine’s YouTube.
