I spent 5 hours watching 6 award-winning documentaries at IDFA. Hard day… My general feeling is that the borderline of a documentary and a feature movie is even more blur. Many documentaries are seems to tell stories with fixed interpretations (and they assure you that is the whole story) . There are not so much space left for you to judge. On the other hand, there are fewer limitations on how do you tell the stories in documentaries. Probably, you can design some rough plot then let go to see what you can get from the flow of time as in Constantin and Elena. You can add some artificial scenes to dramatize your story as it is in Silver Wolf Award winner Boris Ryzhy. Or you can even just make animations out of your audio record as in Slaves – An Animated Documentary. You can also tell some stories about a dead dog while making your point on something else as in Wanja. More and more often, the film maker let the subjects participate in the making of the film by some other interactions rather than just being recorded, even some offline project extensions like what they did in Born Into Brothels: Calcutta’s Red Light Kids . In the end you can remix stuffs and collect others’ creativity according to the manifesto in one of the coolest documentaries: RIP-A Remix Manifesto.
Among those pieces, what I love most is the Joris Ivens award winner Burma VJ - Reporting From a Closed Country. It simply made me in tears. It aroused something emotional at the back of my mind which I can’t explain here. I think we should cherish what we had improved in our country for the past 20 years. Fortunately, it is somehow getting to a different plot now in China, at least I believe so.
BTW I also saw a documentary about this famous Dutch documentary director Joris Ivens few month ago. It is called An old friend of Chinese People. This title makes much more sense than it seems, if you translate it into Chinese and know a bit of the relevant history. I didn’t really get the point of that documentary but it is definitely something worth knowing about the controversial issues between Ivens and China. I think the most important point of any sort of art is that you should be sincere when you make it. I can’t really judge it in Ivens’ case, need to know much more.
Just came back from the world premiere of the documentary I wanna be boss at IDFA. This carefully structured documentary really touched me as a Chinese who have been through that year for the highly competitive college entrance exam. I can’t help to compare this piece to the episode on the same topic in the BBC series of Chinese School. This one is more compact but with a very good rhythm of the emotional development in just 55 mins. I am again amazed by the closeness of the ‘invisible’ camera(maybe even “closer” then BBC), which contributes a lot to the connection between the life of those 5 students and the audience. The poetic narration of the girl with an angel face at the end brings the story to my heart. People may find funny or pathetic for the life like this, but as showed in the film, we are proud that we went through and grew up. Ironic or not, that is how we celebrate the end of our adolescence with overwhelming pressure and hope from parents and the society at the same time. Actually, as we looked back, it was just the start of our struggles to find the true love from our heart. Peking University or Tsinghua, though absolutely top as they are in China, can’t guarantee the beautiful future for you. Life is to be enjoyed or spoiled which can’t be determined so easily.
This documentary may sound not critical enough but on the other hand it warms your heart by true stories. Maybe to be critical is not its purpose, just as the director put it. The team went through many troubles, especially this year at the most important moment of “gao kao” while eventful torch rally affected the entrance to China for journalists. It is worth mentioning that the camera work is just brilliant with subtle clever/beautiful frames. Refreshing and touching, well done!
Trailer:
BTW Thanks to Di and Martijn, I had such a wonderful night! I enjoyed chatting with the production team, especially the director Marije Meerman (Thanks a lot for the DVD!). There were also two students from Bashu Highschool, suddenly I felt I am sooo old…
This documentary will be shown again at IDFA Friday, November 28th, Amsterdam, Tuschinski 6, 11.00 hr.
Also you may expect to see it from the Dutch TV NL2 (to be confirmed ) next Monday. Then it will be put online for a week or so.
