Bang Bang Galore!
A Filmmaker’s BLOGELLA
Written by Steve Rosenberg
Blog 14 (John’s Documentary)
Today, I finally saw the documentary film John has been working on for the past year. The film entitled Hex; short for Historical Expedition is a hard film to escape without feeling bludgeoned.
The film weighs in at two hours and thirty minutes and but somehow feels longer. “Every child is born free, free from hunger, free from hatred, from toil. How many children in our country are living free?” It is hard to disagree with the premise and the child labourers photographed in this film are visually arresting; but when combined with the incredibly all knowing voice of John and his daughter spoon feeding narration, I feel a little bit beat up in the process.
“So what do you think of my documentary?” he says showing me every tooth in his gaped smile. I want to say: Fire the editor, kill the voices of both narrators and cut this sucker into a three minute promo that you can put on your website. But out of my mouth come these flowery sycophantic words of praise: “I think the imagery is very powerful.” Who am I to criticize his first- born child, a baby that probably took ten thousand hours to create? I’ve been there myself. The film world is harsh enough and I don’t like discouraging other emerging filmmakers. I leave that honour to broadcasters and festival juries.
Equally annoying is his of camera style and technique. Every cut is a slow dissolve and he uses the same formula of zooming from a wide shot into a full close up of a pained looking child. Over and over again, he freezes on the close up of an emoting child who is told to say, “think of me when you are eating a banana.” In all fairness, there are memorable morsels of information. Did you know that bananas are the fourth most important food group after, rice wheat and corn? I don’t remember how many billions of bananas are exported by India, but I am clear that there are many children exploited in the process.
“Do you have any more comments?” he probes. “Yes, I think it is very repetitive at times and you need to trim the narration and let the audience decide what to think. In his film there are several delightful musical passages. I spray on some more perfumed compliments, but I am adamant that his film is far from finished. “You still need to fix a few things!” John listens to my concerns and is gracious in accepting my critique. Mio had Tak shared similar concerns and seem rather pleased that I came clean with my criticisms. “We are too hoping for a shorter film,” says Tak.
At least, I am aware of the potential potholes I may encounter if I try to force feed people with issues, facts and information. Hopefully my film will be about characters first, issues second. On a brighter note, John filmed more than one hundred fifty hours of footage and tells me that I am welcome to use any portion of it for my purposes. It’s nice to know I have this access.
Two days later, I see Mio filling out online film festival applications and packing up DVD’s. “Did John trim down the film at all?” “No, we decided to keep things as they are for now. If the film is rejected by festivals, John will do some more editing.” She seems upbeat about the future chances of this film. We were always taught in film school to kill your darlings. Kill even your favourite images if they create detours for your story. There are many darlings in John’s film. He just needs to say goodbye to most of them.
