One Pandemic Day dives into the early COVID-19 world on April 14 in Oakville, Ontario. The documentary explores the lives of Oakville residents about a month into the pandemic.
Oakville is west of Mississauga about halfway between Toronto and Hamilton on Lake Ontario. The town is about 200,000 people.
April 14, 2020 — a year to today — we see very few masks in the community. That is a bit of a surprise. The documentary is about how the lives of people are adjusting to the new "normal."
The residents film themselves. The quality of most of the video is shockingly good. The one resident who struggles with the video is Oakville Mayor Rob Burton with his “one-handed lifestyle for the day.”
Those without kids will see what online learning is like in 2020. The scene of kids in a hot tub for recess is a way for their mother to do her own homework for a writing course.
We see clips of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ontario Premier Rob Ford. We hear more from local politicians such as Pam Damoff, MP from Oakville North-Burlington.
Jeff Kroll, Oakville town & regional councillor, is pretty much the star of the film. We see Kroll in his role as a politician and his day job as the CEO of the Film.Ca Cinemas. You have to read the credits to find out Kroll is an executive producer on the film.
Kroll weighs in on the difficulty of getting financial help from his business during the film. Kroll does give an otherwise missing perspective, which is running a business and dealing with how to get the CEBA (Canadian Emergency Business Account) assistance. That said, the conflict should be upfront in the film.
The look back is fascinating yet incomplete. No one is mentally exhausted from the pandemic only being a month into what is happening. Current audiences might be wishful for that time as a more innocent time.
April 14 last year started out warm and sunny yet snow arrived by the afternoon. While that might seem abnormal in some areas of the North America continent, that was somewhat normal compared to the lives upended by the pandemic.
Too much emphasis is placed on those in great situations versus those struggling financially. Perhaps that is what Oakville reflected on that date. The news coverage has greatly emphasized the same type of people featured in the documentary.
Watching people go through the pandemic while we are still in the pandemic can be jarring for some. Others want to learn from the mistakes made a year ago.
Director/editor Mikelle Virey lets the residents speak for themselves. There isn't a sense of who was picked and why.
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One Pandemic Day is worth watching whether today or maybe a few months from now when you might be ready.
One Pandemic Day is available in the United States on Amazon Prime Video.
video credit: YouTube Film.Ca Cinemas
photos credit: One Pandemic Day film
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