Bontoc Eulogy
The Fake Documentary. Immediately it sounds like an oxymoron. Documentary. Allegedly, it's defined as "documenting" reality. In fact the documentary.org website is billed as "[s]upporting documentary filmmakers and promoting non-fiction film and video." Non-fiction. Not false. I.e., True. Or, at least truthful. Fake. Well, it's fake. It's a replication of, not the original, an approximation. It doesn't seem like Fake, and Documentary can be one term. However, what is true, and what is real? The fake documentary is a surrealist way of asking this question, presenting notions about identity and authenticity and challenging the view to examine the paradigm of documentary. What do we expect from documentary? The format of documentary is thrown into question. What promise to the real is the documentary trying to provide? Just because it looks like a documentary, and "acts" like a documentary doesn't mean it's all real. Does it? No. Notions of memory are brought to the fore. How well do you remember a given event, or time? Isn't it true that you and I may differ in our memories of a real event? And, were we do differ, who becomes the authority? Surrealism. Throwing what we know into disarray, dislocation, upsetting the balance. What we are familiar with now is parody, and satire. Think The Colbert Report, The Daily Show. The idea of a Fake Documentary then is almost a play on the words. Or, in this case word. Fake. Is it a fake of a fake? Therefore, possibly a truth? Or is is a document about fake(s)? A documentary about a boat could be, The Boat Documentary. Therefore, The Fake Documentary could be about fakes. I think this is precisely what is surreal, and makes the Fake Documentary (a sub-discipline of Documentary) intelligent and valid as a form of storytelling.
In Bontoc Eulogy, grief and memory are our guides on a search for the truth about a man's grandfather, and ultimately a search for identity. Through an assemblage of found footage and of memory, the narrator, Marlon Fuentes, asks the broader question of how we form our identity from memory. Using the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Mo. (yuck!), as the place where his grandfather disappeared (he never returned), Fuentes imagines – through the real filmic footage taken at the fair – evolving Philippine identity as a whole in the postcolonial world. Postcolonial was a new concept at the turn of the 19th century. Through the Fake Documentary, Fuentes forces the questions of What is meaningful, and what's usable in history? How do we situate ourselves in the narrative of our history?
But what about the term fake, in Fake Documentary? Why does the word fake in this name work? Today it was announced that J.D. Salinger died. May he R.I.P. He was notoriously private, and it's hard to imagine a biography about his life. We don't know details about his life in the same way that we don't really know the details of Fuentes's grandfather. We get a sense of his (Salinger's) life from his novels, and we assume from historical stories that the mental breakdown of Holden Caulfield, in the vernacular he wrote, and the place he came from, is really, him. This is not much different from wondering – actually, assuming – which parts of the life of Fuentes's grandfather are true and which are false, or embellished in Bontoc Eulogy. Could we call a biography a Fake Biography? Would anyone believe it? Would anyone buy it? Somehow, I don't think so. The application of the work fake is different, and doesn't apply here. Why not? The term Fake Documentary is, in fact then, a work of fiction and can only be referred to as such. Yes, there are parts which are true. Yes, there is real footage of real people at real events doing real things. Yes, Fuentes had a grandfather, but is this film actually about a real person? Or, is it's purpose to inform about something else? The Fake Documentary is more of a meta-text, presented as the main text, yet about some other (presumably) real text. Fake Documentary is using the language and form of documentary (which we assume is real since, by definition it is documentary) in the same way that a novelist uses the voice of a character and the vernacular of a time period to tell a story, and ultimately inform. Fake Documentary is not documentary.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
Man of Aran, Robert Flaherty, 1934
A recreation of a culture on the Edge. Literally. The edge of a 700-foot cliff. The edge of the sea, and the edge of land. The edge of an era. Through recreation, Man of Aran depicts the drama of pre-commercial fishermen as men in small wooden boats go out to hunt for Basking Sharks. Basking sharks are easily as big as the boat the 4-5 men captain, and using hand-thrown, hand-made harpoons it's easy to imagine the difficulty, and danger involved in wrangling one of these enormous beasts. Add to this the fact that they are rowing off the North Western coast of Ireland–not exactly a place with calm waters and warm sunshine. Prone to North Atlantic storms and unpredictable weather, the men are facing a daunting task bringing in the bask. (Terrible rhyme. I couldn't help it.)
On land, or maybe more appropriately, on Rock, the people of the Isle of Aran scrape (literally) a living from the rocky terrain. Life is hard, very hard for the people of Aran.
Or, at least it was.
Flaherty, in his second film has made a dramatic film documenting a way of life no longer entirely lived. The days of fishing like this have been over for a short amount of time. This is not told to us in the film, nor is it told to us how they make living and fish in the present. In a romantic rendition, Flaherty, with breathtaking landscapes and a cast of characters depicting a family, recreates a very rough way of life. Men out to sea for hours, a day, days. The woman (there's only one, but we assume there must be others) at home with her young eek out a living amonst the rocky coast, and pine away at sunset wondering if she will spot the men's boat coming back. It may never come back. This is dangerous business.
The influence of Flaherty is as breathtaking as his beautiful photography. He builds tension through the use of music, voice over (not narration, but seemingly the actors' voices) and tight editing. Waves crashing against the formidable rocky coast, men and women struggling to find dirt among the deep cracks of the rocky terrain (which they use to create a garden), and storms brewing on the horizon, combine with heroic shots of hearty people looking out to sea, caressed by beautiful light. The happy-go-lucky-life-is-beautiful-here-as-primitive-man has influenced all the Disney films I remember as a child. I'm reminded of the hearty Paul Bunyon type at peace, and in harmony with the animals, big and small of the forest. His wife and children happy and singing with the birds and admiring the spider's web, and cracking nuts with the squirrels. It's all there in 1934 in Flaherty's romantic vision of a way of life now passed. It seems to say: It's backbreaking, dangerous work, yet, we're all happy. Another film I'm assuming is heavily influenced is, 2001: A Space Odessey, by Stanley Kubrick. The opening scene of the monkey smashing bones set to symphonic music (I think it's Beethoven), and is straight out of the scene of the Irish family breaking rocks to make garden walls.
Flaherty's use of what seems like multiple cameras, but our professors tell us is only one, is cutting edge. Scenes from the boat of the fishing for the shark with multiple angles makes us feel that we are right on top of the shark itself. Flaherty must have risked a lot to get these scenes. Oddly, nowadays, when animals are involved in "documentary" films, there is usually a disclaimer saying something like, "No animals were harmed during the making of this film." Not in Flaherty's films. Not back then.
None of the characters are developed, and we feel no real connection to them, unlike with Nanook and his family in his 1922 film, Nanook of the North. However, I think Flaherty is not going for that, and the characters are only important insofar as they help him achieve his vision of the romance of a lifestyle of a vanishing way of live. A culture unknown to most of his viewers. Not only is the depiction of that of a culture on the edge, we are also watching film making on the cutting edge.
On land, or maybe more appropriately, on Rock, the people of the Isle of Aran scrape (literally) a living from the rocky terrain. Life is hard, very hard for the people of Aran.
Or, at least it was.
Flaherty, in his second film has made a dramatic film documenting a way of life no longer entirely lived. The days of fishing like this have been over for a short amount of time. This is not told to us in the film, nor is it told to us how they make living and fish in the present. In a romantic rendition, Flaherty, with breathtaking landscapes and a cast of characters depicting a family, recreates a very rough way of life. Men out to sea for hours, a day, days. The woman (there's only one, but we assume there must be others) at home with her young eek out a living amonst the rocky coast, and pine away at sunset wondering if she will spot the men's boat coming back. It may never come back. This is dangerous business.
The influence of Flaherty is as breathtaking as his beautiful photography. He builds tension through the use of music, voice over (not narration, but seemingly the actors' voices) and tight editing. Waves crashing against the formidable rocky coast, men and women struggling to find dirt among the deep cracks of the rocky terrain (which they use to create a garden), and storms brewing on the horizon, combine with heroic shots of hearty people looking out to sea, caressed by beautiful light. The happy-go-lucky-life-is-beautiful-here-as-primitive-man has influenced all the Disney films I remember as a child. I'm reminded of the hearty Paul Bunyon type at peace, and in harmony with the animals, big and small of the forest. His wife and children happy and singing with the birds and admiring the spider's web, and cracking nuts with the squirrels. It's all there in 1934 in Flaherty's romantic vision of a way of life now passed. It seems to say: It's backbreaking, dangerous work, yet, we're all happy. Another film I'm assuming is heavily influenced is, 2001: A Space Odessey, by Stanley Kubrick. The opening scene of the monkey smashing bones set to symphonic music (I think it's Beethoven), and is straight out of the scene of the Irish family breaking rocks to make garden walls.
Flaherty's use of what seems like multiple cameras, but our professors tell us is only one, is cutting edge. Scenes from the boat of the fishing for the shark with multiple angles makes us feel that we are right on top of the shark itself. Flaherty must have risked a lot to get these scenes. Oddly, nowadays, when animals are involved in "documentary" films, there is usually a disclaimer saying something like, "No animals were harmed during the making of this film." Not in Flaherty's films. Not back then.
None of the characters are developed, and we feel no real connection to them, unlike with Nanook and his family in his 1922 film, Nanook of the North. However, I think Flaherty is not going for that, and the characters are only important insofar as they help him achieve his vision of the romance of a lifestyle of a vanishing way of live. A culture unknown to most of his viewers. Not only is the depiction of that of a culture on the edge, we are also watching film making on the cutting edge.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Film: Mother Dao the Turtlelike (Vincent Monnikendam, 1995), 86 min.
"Fascination of the abomination" is how this was described to us today. However, as fascinating as parts of it may have been, and however fascinated with that which is abominable we may be, this film is, well, terrible.
Explosions: we don't know the cause of; A desolate landscape: we don't know where; Spacey music, a narration of a subtitled poem…What's going on?
Mother (Earth) is being destroyed. A love affair which began with a Virgin twin birth quickly descends into a depressing view of colonial Dutch, as they pillage the indigenous landscape and the souls of the indigenous peoples of the Dutch West Indies.
The message: Evil western colonialists want what's under the ground, and will do anything to justify taking it, and in the process destroy what indigenous life, and lifestyle may stand in the way. As a parallel, the recent movie Avatar has the exact same message, and is certainly much more entertaining.
Constructed of what seems like home video footage, and propaganda films made from that time, the film has a loose narrative structure which breaks apart, looses us, and ultimately disappoints when it doesn't end once, twice, three times, etc. It's too long and has made it's point in about 25 minutes, leaving us to suffer the remaining 61 minutes.
The use of Sound, which is the only thing that holds the film together, is interesting, but hardly novel in it's use. It knocks on our eardrums with trippey, distorted sounds over incongruous images of suffering lepers, the senseless (seemingly) slaughter of beasts, rituals, work and play. The poems are beautiful, and seeing as the filmmaker made the film in 1995 it would be nice if we could read the subtitles!
A few images stand out such as a "leader" colonist standing elevated on a platform as he instructs the natives in god-knows-what lesson, he looks like a Christ figure, draped in white and crucified as he waves his arms about and is vertically bisected by a huge wooden pole. We assume he's buying their destruction.
A baby takes turns suckling on his mother's milk and puffing from a cigarette! This is an early visual clue to the destruction of the culture. But how are we supposed to read this? Where did he get that cigarette? Is it his mom who is just stupid? If she's stupid then does that make the vile destruction and forced labor of the "natives" acceptable? Or, should we be sympathetic towards the unknowing child and mother, since it's the work of the colonists who brought them cigarettes? Who knows? Is this the face of indoctrination?
I guess it's an attempt at a different direction in film making, but doesn't play up it's strengths and looses itself to the attempt at something different. However, it's not different at all, and must certainly be influenced by far better films such as Baraka, and the various a;sdjf;asdjf;sdj series. The scene of James Nachtwey in War Photographer photographing inside a sulfur mine is far more evocative, telling, and daring!
The lack of story, narrative (voice over), and context throughout the film makes the film feel like a propaganda film itself, and I wish the filmmakers would have cut it down, provided context, and used the sounds as more than just something there which helps us stomach the film.
Evocative use of sound and imagery and good story telling are better off viewed in a film like Lucien Taylor's Sweetgrass.
Explosions: we don't know the cause of; A desolate landscape: we don't know where; Spacey music, a narration of a subtitled poem…What's going on?
Mother (Earth) is being destroyed. A love affair which began with a Virgin twin birth quickly descends into a depressing view of colonial Dutch, as they pillage the indigenous landscape and the souls of the indigenous peoples of the Dutch West Indies.
The message: Evil western colonialists want what's under the ground, and will do anything to justify taking it, and in the process destroy what indigenous life, and lifestyle may stand in the way. As a parallel, the recent movie Avatar has the exact same message, and is certainly much more entertaining.
Constructed of what seems like home video footage, and propaganda films made from that time, the film has a loose narrative structure which breaks apart, looses us, and ultimately disappoints when it doesn't end once, twice, three times, etc. It's too long and has made it's point in about 25 minutes, leaving us to suffer the remaining 61 minutes.
The use of Sound, which is the only thing that holds the film together, is interesting, but hardly novel in it's use. It knocks on our eardrums with trippey, distorted sounds over incongruous images of suffering lepers, the senseless (seemingly) slaughter of beasts, rituals, work and play. The poems are beautiful, and seeing as the filmmaker made the film in 1995 it would be nice if we could read the subtitles!
A few images stand out such as a "leader" colonist standing elevated on a platform as he instructs the natives in god-knows-what lesson, he looks like a Christ figure, draped in white and crucified as he waves his arms about and is vertically bisected by a huge wooden pole. We assume he's buying their destruction.
A baby takes turns suckling on his mother's milk and puffing from a cigarette! This is an early visual clue to the destruction of the culture. But how are we supposed to read this? Where did he get that cigarette? Is it his mom who is just stupid? If she's stupid then does that make the vile destruction and forced labor of the "natives" acceptable? Or, should we be sympathetic towards the unknowing child and mother, since it's the work of the colonists who brought them cigarettes? Who knows? Is this the face of indoctrination?
I guess it's an attempt at a different direction in film making, but doesn't play up it's strengths and looses itself to the attempt at something different. However, it's not different at all, and must certainly be influenced by far better films such as Baraka, and the various a;sdjf;asdjf;sdj series. The scene of James Nachtwey in War Photographer photographing inside a sulfur mine is far more evocative, telling, and daring!
The lack of story, narrative (voice over), and context throughout the film makes the film feel like a propaganda film itself, and I wish the filmmakers would have cut it down, provided context, and used the sounds as more than just something there which helps us stomach the film.
Evocative use of sound and imagery and good story telling are better off viewed in a film like Lucien Taylor's Sweetgrass.
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