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| 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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"Photo: Arvīds Krievs" "Photo: Inta Ruka" Concept Helēna Demakova. Script and director Arvīds Krievs. Camera Dāvis Sīmanis. Music Mārtiņš Brauns. Editing Armands Blumbergs. Producer Guntis Trekteris ("Kaupo filma", 68 min., 2002). This time, breaking with tradition, we won't have ladies first, but instead we'll start with the only gentleman in this company. The idea, however, came from a woman - art researcher and curator Helēna Demakova, who, as exhibition curator, has shown the works of Inta Ruka at a prestigious modern art event - the Venice Biennial. Last year, her profoundly human photo portraits were also on view in the streets of Riga. Regarding these, many viewers might ask: who is the photographer? And this question the film "Photo: Inta Ruka" tries to answer. Since the preconditions for interest in this film were very well founded, I watched it with a degree of anticipation. However, the longer I watched, the more clearly I was overcome by a feeling that for the director the film's heroine had not seemed sufficiently interesting to warrant probing her personality. One of the aims of a portrait film is to answer the question posed: if an attempt is being made to tell of a particular person for a whole hour, then we want to know who, in essence, is this person, this particular man or woman on the screen? And here we come across the question of attitude, mentioned at the beginning. If the filmmaker is not specifically interested in the film's hero, or at least capable to some extent of empathising with him or her, then the viewer will lose out in the end. This is most clearly revealed in the story line, or in this case the lack of it, since, watching the film, we get the impression that it records the heroine's everyday life and milieu without any clear dramatic concept. After filming, the material has been lined up and the heroine has been asked to comment on the scenes. Here this has failed as a dramatic approach also for the simple reason that, though Inta Ruka is a highly professional photographer, she is not a professional narrator of film texts (and, of course, it is particularly hard to comment on oneself!). The film "Photo: Inta Ruka" has been shot by a camera operator with a high regard for classic cinema aesthetics, so in purely visual terms, "Photo: Inta Ruka" is enjoyable to watch. This is guaranteed by cameraman Dāvis Sīmanis. But we should note that the people filmed by Sīmanis are more like compositional elements in the shots than real, live individuals. The cameraman's interest in crafting the composition of his shots puts Inta Ruka and her fellows in second place, rendering them walk-on parts in a story where they should be playing the main roles. This is appropriate in certain feature films and advertising, but in documentary cinema (certainly in the case of portrait film) priority must go to the person being filmed, rather than to the "gilding on the frame", so ably created by Sīmanis. Also, the director, apparently used to feature films shot under normal conditions, seems to have forgotten that his operator has no rails for sliding the camera smoothly. And so, giving him a small digital video camera, he has made him imitate a whole team, which under minimal budgeting conditions gives an unprofessional impression in places, or else, if it is intended as a conceptual "Dogma" approach, is not consistently employed. Not so "blonde stories" "Blonde stories" Script and director Kristīne Želve. Camera Andrejs Rudzāts. Producer Elvita Ruka ("Vides filmu studija", 52 min., 2003). A quite different attitude towards her heroines is shown by the young director of "Blonde stories", Kristīne Želve, who has listened with evident natural interest in the stories of her heroines. This is affirmed by what we see on the screen. The content of the film consists of stories told by five natural blondes, which in itself is a clever concept, but could have remained an empty form, had it not been filled by truly interesting and contrasting personalities. In this case, the approach has been brought off successfully. A white-haired, but very "fresh" attractive blonde lady who has outlived five husbands; a young "ugly duckling" of beauty contests - a model; a young woman left pregnant by her true love of one summer; a young, attractive mother with many children and ... an "angel", an uninhibited young woman. All are blondes, and all are personalities. And the personalities and stories have been made more interesting by the author, who, with her unobtrusive, but sensitively interested presence as a listener behind the camera, has passed on to us, the viewers, her astute interest and empathy towards the heroes. The director is as yet lacking the professional tools to present the story on screen as it might have been told best, but it should also be borne in mind that this is Kristīne Želve's first feature-length film. Here I end my discussion of "Blonde stories", since I would like to look at the professional aspects in conjunction with the next film, "there's more of me...", by Arta Biseniece. "there's more of me..." "there's more of me..." Script Nora Ikstena. Director Arta Biseniece. Camera Jānis Eglītis. Editing Francis Vesans. Producer Elvita Ruka ("Izteiksme", 52 min., 2003). The heroine of the film is one of the most original voices in Latvian music - Biruta Ozoliņa. The story is about a singer who marries a pastor, and their four children, with moments of crisis in life, sufficiently dramatic, it would seem, to hold the viewer's attention for almost an hour and make him or her ponder the big questions of life. One of the paradigms of documentary film is the ability and wish to listen to the film's heroes. But the director of "there's more of me..." has chosen to remain a passive listener in relation to her heroine. Often, it is difficult in documentary cinema to keep to a strictly formulated plot, and in this case too it is the author of the film's concept Nora Ikstena who has conveyed the personal world of the film and its heroine, in terms of both people and ideas, as far as a scriptwriter and interviewer can. Her contribution and attitude is clearly felt. And so the dramatic human story line of "there's more of me..." is up to scratch. To the point where the reins should pass to the director. Since it is precisely the director's attitude and work that is completely invisible in this film. And one of the most important processes in the making of this film, i.e., the montage, has been undertaken by a Frenchman, Francis Vesans, who apparently does not know the original language of the film, Latvian. In the previous film by Arta Biseniece, "Riga. 10 years after...", his style of work, with its abrupt rhythm, appeared as a fresh contribution in the general run of Latvian documentary film, but this time he seems to have misunderstood his task. Addressing purely professional aspects and viewing the film "there's more of me..." in relation to "Blonde stories", it must be said that inadequacies in the directing work by Kristīne Želve are not explicable in terms of inability or unwillingness to undertake the task set out. It is apparent that, probing the true essence of her heroes, the director has tried to convey it adequately to the viewer. In this case, we must turn to the question of the school. Namely the directing course at the Latvian Academy of Culture, also finished by Arta Biseniece, director of "there's more of me..." They come from the same course, with different approaches, but the same professional problems. An inability to create a dramatically rhythmic message. "There's more of me..." and "Blonde stories" are seemingly very different films, but in examining the technical implementation, we can find schematic parallels that result from their schooling. The teaching staff at the Academy of Culture have, unfortunately, not been able to instil high-level professional skills. Documentary film is, in large measure, a lasting document of its time and the people living in it. These two works, "there's more of me..." and "Blonde stories", with a fusion of the life experience and schooling of the two directors, reflects one of the new currents in Latvian documentary film. The initial scenes are similar: a seemingly accidental introduction to the film's heroine at a moment seemingly extracted from the flow of life. The style of this message (at times stark as a concrete wall, at times immediate and rousing as home video), the recording of everyday affairs and a jerky montage style, greatly influenced by the "Dogma" principles of amateur camera preached by the Dane Lars von Trier, demonstrates the contemporary thinking and perception of life among young documentary filmmakers - along with characteristic fragmentation and nonlinearity. Although purporting to be a true vision of "the face of life", it is not always capable of passing this on to the viewer. Both films also include episodes that are thematically similar. But how different is the attitude and the result! That same scene of a woman prettying herself for filming, that same scene with mentally ill children, that same Christian theme. These are heartfelt scenes in the film "Blonde stories", where we sense an interested listener behind the camera, while the analogous scenes appear alienated in "there's more of me...", bordering on visual disrespect both towards the heroes of the film and the viewer. One example: already in the introduction to the film we see a half-minute-long close-up of the microphone of a recording studio, while the film's hero has been left "under the table". "and..." "Signe and..." Director, camera and producer Dzintra Geka. Camera Aivars Lubānietis. Camera Jānis Milberts. Editing and sound Armands Zvirbulis. ("Studija SB", 30 min., 2003). From the professional point of view, the finest of the four films reviewed here is "Signe and...", by Dzintra Geka - a short film portrait of animator Signe Baumane. It is a welcome exception to the general run of Latvian films, which suffer so badly from a lack of good montage (with a sense of dramatic rhythm). This is largely thanks to editor and sound editor Armands Zvirbulis (who also worked on the well-known "Riga gambit"). It seems that the maximum result has been obtained from the filmed footage. So here we may heartily congratulate the professional tandem of director Dzintra Geka and editor Armands Zvirbulis! However, it is not clear from the point of view of the content why the director had to go to New York, where Baumane lives, only to sit her in an anonymous white boat that could just as well have been floating on Lake Ķīšezers in Riga. This place has no personal significance in the life of the film's heroine, and even if it did, the viewer is given no chance to find out about it. A similar effect has been achieved using entirely the opposite approach by Arvīds Krievs in the film "Photo: Inta Ruka", making the hero of the film Inta Ruka pluck dandelions against the universally recognisable backdrop of Riga, which in this case is just as anonymous and just as uninformative about Inta Ruka as the boat with Baumane in the film "Signe and...". We might invoke some kind of poetic allusion to "walks in the dandelion-meadow of life, plucking the pretty and simple flowers" in the former case and "the stream of life that bears us all along" in the latter, but nothing like this is evident either. New York is, of course, the place of life and work for Baumane, and then there's the question that the director couldn't refrain from asking, "What are your feelings after 11 September?" Also filmed is Bill Plimpton, a well-known figure among professional animators and so important to the film's heroine - he is the main "culprit" of New York being the point of attraction. But we never find out what this city does or does not mean to Baumane, or what is her view of the location of her creative life, and whether this does or does not influence her work. The setting is shown, but it does not in this case explain itself. And in the end, from what Baumane says and what the film director asks her, we do not find out the most important things about the animator. Neither why a woman with two degrees has become so carried away with the theme of sex and why she is "chained" to her desk, or why she has left behind in Latvia her son about whom she talks so much? Yes, we see on the screen a woman who talks about her strong link with sex and work, which have fused together to form Baumane's unusual style of animation. These are themes about which she says a great deal, but in the end it remains unclear exactly what are the reasons behind this unusual life. No attempt has been made to approach these issues. The ellipsis in the title of the film remains an ellipsis even after the film has been seen. There is an impression that the two women have had a friendly chat, carefully lifting the most visible part of the veil, but that the director has not sought to touch on the more profound aspects of the heroine's personality, since this might have made the pleasant conversation somewhat less pleasant. Such thoughts, however, arise afterwards, since the film itself is enjoyable. In the first place, it is a joy to watch a work without too many professional faults. And this is something not so often seen in Latvian cinema these days. Secondly, the film's rhythm is quick and natural, developed successfully both in terms of the dramatic concepts and the visual realisation. Here, once again, we may hail Armands Zvirbulis. Seeking to draw together these ideas, it must be concluded that our cinema is no worse than the contribution of any other country in this field. The proportion of grain and chaff is just the same, and the coefficients of professionalism and success are no lower. In cinema, they have never really been particularly high. It may be that the financial strictures act to lay bare shortcomings that foreign filmmakers are able to hide by putting in more money, but there's no way you can buy humanity and sensitivity in the attitude towards your work. Either it's there or it isn't. But it is possible to develop in this regard. This is the hope cherished by the author of this brief reflection on the year's film harvest. | |
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