Shirkers

I heard the Sandi Tan interview on Fresh Air and was intrigued by Shirkers. Went into it with high expectations and thinking I knew what to expect, but was let down as I watched it unfold.

Tan narrates a film that is about her which includes video made by teenagers decades ago, a lot of people talking about Tan, and uninteresting storytelling.

It's a documentary with the seriousness and importance of a historic figure but the subject is a film critic/film maker describing this one mildly interesting thing that happened to her.

The premise was interesting, but it fell apart under the weight of her own self-importance.

As a piece of film-making in its own right, this a hypnotic and visually captivating production. As far as the content goes, it is just too self-important and pretentious to bear its own weight. The mystery regarding Georges is comfortably the most compelling aspect of the film yet is not explored in anywhere near enough detail. That is the real story here, not the group of amateur film-makers who naively lost their footage and have overblown their memories of it.

Works on a lot of levels - as a glimpse into indie/counterculture in Singapore in 1992 with a distinctive young woman's voice, as an exploration into the psychological abuser who absconded with her film (what an asshole this guy was!), and as a study in reconnecting with friends decades later, taking them all back to a special time and place, and then viewing themselves from a distance. It's outrageous and maddening, but at the same time, touching and lovely. Very well done by Sandi Tan, and I would love to see a dubbed version of the original film.

"Henceforth, audience's curiosity is sizably whetted, and Tan's ensuing quest of "who is Georges Cardona" spirits us away to Cardona's hometown, interviewing his acquaintances and ex-wife (whose image is gingerly pixelated and only referred as "the widow"), and discloses a vague picture what a man he was, Nosferatu is the ostensible consensus: a fabulist who is envious of the achievement of his protégés, which he is not above to undermine at his convenience. Georges makes for such a fascinating case of mental complexity, the first impression he makes on others: emitting congeniality that incongruent with the cold glint in his eyes, might be the best encapsulation, however, SHIRKERS seem to pull punches in burrowing deeper into the truth (a half measure in our post-truth paranoia), whether it is from Tan's own equivocal interrelation with Georges, or the widow's conspicuous "I don't know anything about it" disclaimer."

This documentary came highly recommended from sources I trust and is either praised to the rafters or leaves the viewer completely indifferent. I can understand why people clicked with this movie; I'm not confused why they enjoyed it but the euphoric reviews baffle me. For my part I found it sappy and trivial.

The documentary follows a woman, talking 20 years on, trying to piece together a lost film from her childhood in Singapore. The result is it's terribly self-important for someone who made two short films. Great documentaries, no matter how intimate or grand the subject, convince the viewer they're talking about something important. This element is missing. The film they were making didn't even look promising. To me it's no less vain and uninteresting to watch your average student filmmaker wax lyrical about their creative process but somehow this has more importance ascribed to it because... it's an older person saying it? There are great examples of documentaries about personal drama, about relationships, about the making of movies, yet this one lacked the punch and relevance of -any- of those.

The documentary also mentions Werner Herzog's film Fitzcarraldo - that film spawning the sweeping making-of documentary Burden of Dreams. Unintentionally this only serves to remind me of a filmmaker who actually did something noteworthy with their craft.

I will say as a documentary itself, it has a pleasing aesthetic and I can find no real technical faults. This is perhaps owing to the original film's film stock that nowadays evokes nostalgia in its viewers. This film also benefited from its audience seeking it out; it mainly attracted people who would enjoy this and I thought I'd be in that group. I'd be interested to see how a larger audience would react to this.

Ultimately it's the life story about someone who's not that interesting to listen to; a tale of a friendship that's not endearing; a making-of of a movie that didn't look good to begin with. Although what happened is terrible and unjust, it must unfortunately be admitted that the film world was at no great loss without that film and probably wouldn't be without this one.