In lecture today, Lim talked about how nostalgia sells in Singapore like how sex sells elsewhere in the world. We swoon over images such as Oriental Emporium, Bugis Street and etc in some of the movies we watch. Places that we knew but are no longer around, or like the way it was. Ten years seemed like a very long time. Or at least, everyone else in my film project felt so.

Tan Pin Pin’s Invisible City tells us about how people want to remember, how desperate we are in recapturing and immortalizing things that disappear away, so quickly and quietly that we are not even aware.

I remember one instance when I saw the barricating of Buona Vista community center. The next day I was there again, and grass patches are already in place.

How surreptitious.

Ginza plaza at Clementi is gone, so is Sembawang Plaza. Concourse next on the list.

But I can’t help but feel, do we really need things to be there? Preservation for the sake of preservation? Preservation because we can’t let go? Part of our identity has already reside in change itself.

If you really need to have a feel of how Singapore was like, perhaps, 10 years or 15 years ago, take a walk in the neighbourhood of Hougang Ave. 5 and 7.

The rivaling provision shops are still around, the flats are not upgraded, the market looks exactly how it looked when I was young.

The quirks of heartland life, the unique colour scheme for flats, the budgety-looking road signs, the long Serangoon River.

If I were to make a documentary film, Hougang will be my subject.

Another Direct Cinema style documentary, after “Secondary School” by Tammy Cheung. This one, I believed, borrowed ideas and seemingly influenced by Frederick Wiseman’s “High School”.

 The film began by showing “behind-the-scene” footages; it served two purposes.

1. To introduce the subjects (students) of the film, and

2. To capture their innocence

A recurring theme is that students and teachers alike, saw the university entrance exam as the unrealistically (to me at least) important. It also appears to me that students go through education by memorisation instead of applying critical thinking abilities to what they learn.

Is that education? or has education become a machinery of propaganda and brainwashing?

There’s some brief clips of voiceover, which seems like a girl reading out her ‘diary’, and how she felt. Inconsistent though.

The teachers united the class, making them sing songs that depicts loneliness and determination. It challenges my notion that learning is a happy and celebrated thing, but in the case of this school, or this particular education system, it is otherwise.

Finally, the students can only seek solace in the parents visit and the scene was really heartwarming.

One reason why I like the Direct Cinema style, is that it allows audience a free mind to intepret what they see. Kudos to Zhou Hao.

The documentary examined Hong Kong’s secondary education system by zooming in to students’ lives, teachers and parents of two top secondary schools. The documentary also observed the difficulties of the proposed educational reforms, which unfortunately, more of an issue of the inertia of teachers.

The style of Cheung’s film is deeply influenced by Frederick Wiseman; employing a strictly observational shooting, but edited in accordance to a thematic and dramatic structure.

Is the presentation style effective? People who have gone through the system, or are currently in the system, are likely to be drawn into the film because the scenes are something they can relate to. For those who have no experience with this system, the scenes challenge their impressions of secondary education system.

The juxtaposition of the themes also highlights the dramatic ironies, and also challenges the very fundamental questions of the education system and reforms.

Some themes include,
1. The strict enforcement of discipline and control
2. Confusion of students
3. Students’ general lack of confidence
4. Gender difference
5. Students turning to popular culture for definitions in life
6. Hierarchical order of students and teachers
7. Pragmatism of education as opposed to the pursuit of knowledge
8. Stubborn teachers, sticking to the old methods and structure

I am however, interested to know about the teachers’ rationale for doing the things they do. (e.g. discussion of whether students should keep their butts on the ground during a concert, whether they shoud tuck in their P.E t-shirts during exercising) Do they find true meaning in doing these things? Perhaps if I were the director, I would reflect on what I see and do some interviews with the teachers.

The film highlighted two things that struck me most.
First being the lack of empathy of the students towards immigrants from China. While she can accept Canadian Chinese coming back to Hong Kong, she insisted that mainlanders should be sent back as they do not have the rights of abode and HKID.  

Second being the skeptical response from local teachers to their Australian counterpart. While the Australian teacher gave them ideas on reforms and improvement, they skeptically relegate her ideas as infeasible.

“Your country is rich… Your government is elected” were some of the illogical and sarcastic reasons they gave.

Overall, I pretty like this film. It invites viewers (or me at least) to reflect, sociologically, that things need not be the way they were all the time.

 

The shooting technique is not exceptional; the camera is almost hand held all the time (with an extremely charismatic cameraman I presume). The documentary adopts an observational style, cinema verite, which is the common style among Chinese documentaries today.  

The 80-hours long footage is then edited into a 39-minutes documentary short. I believe the presentation style lies mainly on the editing work.

Perhaps due to my personal taste, I realized in Yingzhou district, the use of ‘sepia’ and ‘black and white’ frames were quite common. Usually these scenes convey a poignant mood.

The narrations are made mainly by the subjects themselves. Occasionally, the camera asked a few questions to induce the children to speak up.

The story centered around two young children; Nan nan and Gao Jun. The recurring theme of being rejected and discriminated is straightforward, as we hear from the relatives and guardians being interviewed.  In the overall, the storytelling told us the reasons for the ubqutity of hiv carriers, and also the discrimination and ostracization they faced.

The theme is also portrayed by the song of the children, which is about loneliness, hope, and cherishing love forever. The sweetest part of the film was Gao Jun eating the flowers. The cameraman did a closed up to capture the happy expression.

The last bit where Gao Jun walked the long unending path ahead concludes the story, reiterating the theme of loneliness and helplessness.

I would very much like to think that Leni Riefenstahl was innocent.
She was an artist, concerned about aesthetics more so than anyone else. Hitler commissioned her to make Triumph of the Will, a documentary film that was blacklisted as propaganda after World War II. She was tried after the Nazi Germany’s fall and that marked her film career downfall. Till her death in 2003, she maintained that she will never apologize for Triumph of the Will, and she has never intended the film to be a political one.

Her arguments are

1. Powerful people in Hollywood dislike her
2. She as the woman, of courage, led to jealousy of many people in the Third Reich.
3. She was ignorant of Hitler’s doing (concentration camps, Gestapo), and knew nothing about Hitler’s politics
4. The film was “a pure record of what happened”

Her remarkable achievements were the cause for her downfall.
I feel sad for this wonderful woman. Her career opportunities were isolated to solely the assessment of one film.
Victor’s history; if Nazi Germany continues to exist, would Triumph of the Will be viewed with disgust? Would Leni Riefenstahl be forced out for something she loved so much?

One might argue that TOTW could fail to be a propaganda, given that the penetration of film broadcast in Nazi Germany society was way too ineffective and slow.
Her film was independent and experimental, and if there were attempts of mass screening, her intent would likely be for self image instead of a political reason.

However, I am struggling. I am not so sure when I am presented with TOTW and the other side of the coin. Riefenstahl’s films, in sc2214 we learn, are evidence of fascist aesthetics and ultimately a great propaganda.
“Two films (TOTW and Olympia) have come rightly or wrongly, to epitomise Nazi narcissism – merits attention, even without the tediously irrelevant but apparently still lucrative frisson of how she has been with the Fuhrer.”

Aesthetically pleasing it may be, the images “shows an abiding tendency to abstract the human figure from its historical and social inscription, and treats it as a empty sigh or icon…[using] the human figure to serve as a suport for any kind of message, propaganda or advertising, all of which instrumentalise the body.”

Recurrent visual motifs of the body beautiful, “dehumanizing, quasi-military, hierarichical and patternened representation of crowds.”

Propaganda is a big word. There are various angle to look at propaganda. I shall discuss here propaganda with regards to its intentions and means.

Was Riefenstahl’s motive about advocating the superiority of the Hitler and the National Socialist? Does thinking of herself as “truth-tellers” absolve her from being a propagandist? My take on the notion of propaganda would be – “an deliberate attempt to persuade people to behave and think in a desired way.” As an artist, an aesthetician, would have a message to bring across in her art piece. He or she would be well aware of the possible connotations of the “art” produced. Riefenstahl might not be consciously driving the political messages that Hitler might have intended, but she might have unintentionally brought propagadistic message across in her film.

On the receiving end, she must have thought of the possible emotions and behaviours that might be evoked from the viewers. For example, the point of view which Hitler “descend” from the sky in a God-like manner with the cathedral bells ringing were possibly creating a intertwined image between Hitler and God (Sacredness), [shamelessly] advocating the superiority of the Fuhrer. What was her intention?

Entertainment is one of the best forms of propaganda, because it disguises the intent. It also represents a “hypodermic model of opinion modification.” Hitler wanted Riefenstahl, who was rather politically neutral, to produce a film to move and impress the average German viewer. Was that intention Hitler passed to Riefenstahl? and can that responsibility be placed on shoulder of Riefenstahl?

In the production of TOTW, Riefenstahl employed certain revolutionary shooting tactics which involved lens distortion and close-ups shot of Hitler from below “to make him appear heroic.”
The making the film had a huge budget and extensive budget, with the involvement of high ranking Nazi officials from the propaganda department. Didnt Riefenstahl know better that she was involve in the making of a propaganda?

I’m not sure whether we can give her the benefit of the doubt; maybe she just didnt see the big picture while focusing on the micro aesthetic details?

Hu Jie （胡杰）was here in the JMSC0044 lecture several weeks ago, and I was glad that I am diligent enough to go for lecture on that day.

Just a little bit Hu Jie and the film we were introduced to, “Searching for Lin Zhao’s Soul”. （寻找林昭的灵魂）

The film, which I am eager to watch, is about a girl, Lin Zhao, who was absolutely courageous to stand up against Mao’s totalitarian China during the anti-Rightist movement.

And Hu Jie, previously a People’s Liberation Army （中国人民解放军) soldier, made a documentary revolving the story of her, and the forgotten part of China’s history.

This is his preface,

胡杰：

五年前，我听到了一个关于北京大学女学生，在上海提蓝桥监狱里用自己的鲜血书写了大量勇烈的充满人道激情的血书，最后被监狱秘密枪决的故事。

这个女学生的名字叫林昭。

那时，我第一次听到这个名字。1957年的“反右”运动之后，整个中国大陆都停止了思想，并生活在谎言与恐怖之中，是这个女孩开始进行了独立思考，在狱中，当她被剥夺了笔和纸的情况下。她用发卡当笔，刺破自己的手指，在墙上、在衬衣上书写血的文章与诗歌。

这个故事使我最后作出一个决定。放弃我的工作，去远方寻找林昭飘逝的灵魂……

 According to Hu Jie, there is this ‘hero’s complex’ in him wanting to pursue the story, making it known, put it into record, without fear of political consequences.

In fact he did not really think of what the possible consequences from the central government. He leveraged on technology and archive whatever he could.

“整个中国大陆都停止了思想，并生活在谎言与恐怖之中…”

It sounds like the sunny island that I came from is a exact replica of that. Minds are paralysed, we are all living in a big lie, in a openly corrupted world. Do we have a Lin Zhao? Do we have a Hu Jie? Will we have one?

One part that touched me, or I would say inspired me, was that he was willing to live a life that is pretty ‘rough’ and unstable. Our pragmatic society will deem such ‘artists’ lifestyle’ as being too idealistic and unfeasible.

“I have many skills,” Hu Jie said, when asked where he got his money from.

Freelancing photography amongst other survival skills kept him alive in order to do the things he finds meaning in. This is beyond the imagination of many people, who would want a job that pays well, status befitting and have a constant and predictable lifestyle.

While gratification and satisfaction from these jobs may never be achieved, people continue to stick around in this vicious cycle and whine about it.

At the same time, they laugh at people like Hu Jie. They look at these idealists distantly, wondering what makes them different. These idealists are just doers.

Hu Jie, alongside with the many Peking University exchange students that came for the talk, has left me in awe and inspiration. It made me realise how small my world was, how narrow-minded my mind was.

Just a few days ago, I saw a quote at the school cafe.

“Your brains work like parachutes, it only works when it’s open.”

The documentary is mainly structured in these parts:

1. North Korea as the hermit nation
2. Growing dissents within North Korea
3. Another hit of famine
4. Reluctance of help from international community, including US.

The narrator never showed her face, in order to protect herself and the dissents she interviewed. The footages are obtained by, I believe, purchasing video taken by the people in villages of North Korea.

The, to a certain extent, compelling images, displayed the extreme poverty situation, public executions, young children commit crimes and were beaten up on the streets, and the common scene of dead people lying on the street.

However, the auctenticity of the video remains questionable. The journalist narrator, Kim Jung-Eun claimed that there were evidence of growing dissent pressing for changes in North Korea, however there was no elaboration on what they are.

Also, there was an interview of a fat woman hiding out in China. Would her appearance on media make her more susceptible to be arrested? How questions of the interview were framed, and she got the information of events in North Korea, made me doubt her identity.

One irony about this “fat woman” segment is that after watching smuggled TV programs from South Korea and realising the North Korea is a horrible place to live, she escaped to China but there was no significant relief or improvement to her life.

North Korea, like any stalinist states in the past, displayed national pride and wealth through fascist aesthetics, which includes elaborated military components. I would think that such a part will be an integral part of any films about North Korea.

However it was left out.

The documentary focuses on the human aspect of the situation of North Korea as oppose to the typical protrayal of how military capabilites of North Korea that potentially threatens the United States.

Can we say that there the political agenda of the US are hiding behind this supposed “human aspect” then?

Possibly.
But the picture speaks for themselves, images don’t lie. Something is very wrong when dying people on the streets are “common sight”.

The title itself is effective and powerful. It implies the denial attitude of the people, and more importantly, of the political administration, ditching the truth and potential consequences of global warming to the back of their mind. This message is constantly brought up when political leaders ridicule the warnings of global warming.
“If the issue is not on their constituent thumb, it’s easy for them to ignore it,” he said.

The documentary is highly structured and personalized, which makes it a moving and remarkable film. It seems like a college lecture any undergraduate would dream of!

Drawing sources from his scientist friends, ex-teachers, and his own expeditions, Al Gore did not hide in the pretense of objectivity. From little stories like his “ridiculous classmate” and the “teacher who went on to be a science advisor in the current administration”, he effectively shows the satirical ironies, which have been hampering him from “telling his story” about the global warming.

He handled the documentary by juxtaposing the story of his son’s accident, politics, and a sense of morality altogether to explain how he sees this world. And if you would, remember the part which he drew reference of potentially losing his son to losing “something that we have taken granted for.”

The Inconvenient Truth defies the traditional techniques of environmental documentaries, which is usually narrated by having voiceovers and filmed largely in the wild nature.

The approach of giving a public lecture in a documentary is refreshing, and provides a totally new dynamics. He took totally ownership of his point-of-view and is totally unconcerned of being accused of being not objective.

The use of animation is also a commendable effort, for it captures a wider group of audience that includes young viewers. The polar bear that could not find its way onto any ice land is particularly moving and it reminds us that human being may find themselves in the same plight. (Remember the satellite CGI that shows water flooding major cities)

Honestly I do not have anything much that I dislike about this documentary. Perhaps I would find the part where took the “elevator thingy” to illustrate how high the carbon dioxide would rise in the next 50 years, a tad unnecessary and “overkill”.