TEXTURE OF THE HUMANITY - DOCUMENTARY FILM PORTRAITS OF THE PAST YEAR
Mārtiņš Slišāns
This past year has brought Latvia an extensive harvest of documentary film, which really deserves more than just this brief review. Bearing in mind the limited space, I have chosen to examine the important genre of portrait film, one of the cornerstones of documentary film. Examining the range of documentaries, we find a common feature, namely that during the past year the subjects and makers of these films have mainly been women. Accordingly, we may dwell on this particular phenomenon. Among the four films analysed here, only one is an alternative view, namely a man's view of a woman.
The attitude of the portrait filmmaker towards his or her hero is one of the most important aspects in the creation of the film and its subsequent value. Involved are real people, so we cannot simply discuss the filmmaker's professional level. One of the best positive examples seen recently is Laila Pakalniņa's film "Mārtiņš", outstanding in terms of its simple eloquence - a portrait of a mentally retarded boy and his family. The film won acclaim last autumn at the human rights film festival Ti i ya in Poland. The director's deeply sensitive approach, and at the same time her high professional level, seemingly represents a standard for sifting the rest of the films, since in my view, Pakalniņa is at the moment Latvia's leading documentary filmmaker.
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