It's been a couple of weeks since my return from Park City, and the question of whether I find any identification in mainstream stories (and even more pressing, if I can look past the cultural "exotica" factor) has remained a nagging one. One night, in between screenings, I explain my activities to Ellen Park, who manages the Media Fund for San Francisco's Center for Asian American Media. I mention my ever-present struggle with reconciling support for our communities' APA makers regardless of subject matter versus those mainstream directors and producers who create stories that purport to give a "face" to diasporic and overseas Asian communities and peoples -- these days, I guess the question has taken on the identity of The "Slumdog" Question, given that very famous film that's screaming out "Oscar me!" lately.
I find that Ellen also faces such conflicts at her work, particularly since she finds herself in the position of considering projects by mostly white directors who locate their stories in Asian themes and locales. We agree that, all around, the question is a tricky one, and at some point we're bound to leave someone dissatisfied or unhappy with our decisions, both from the funding side (Ellen) to the exhibition and promotion side (me). I leave that question to hang for the time being, as I leave to attend a midnight screening of the documentary GOOD HAIR.
As Sundance soldiers on without me (I leave midway through the Festival, without a clue as to how the rest of the week turns out), I ponder the effects that "visions and perspective" inform the remaining works I take in. The most challenging, the documentary EL GENERAL by Natalia Almada, attempts to stitch together the fragments of the directors vague recollections of her grandfather, a politician who became Mexico's President in the late 1920s. I say "challenging" because I was obliged to screen the film on a Sunday night, the worst possible time to view a work that demands the viewer's utmost attention. "Challenging, too, for its daring storytelling structure: starting with halting recollections by the director's mother recorded before her death, the audio tapes yield grudging insight into a father/mother relationship, and it is left to a pastiche of audio, interviews, and astounding archival footage to tell the story. Were I attentive enough to really watch the film, I would have to say that EL GENERAL is the most absorbing documentary I've seen in a long time.
Far more problematic was GOOD HAIR, a documentary produced by a team led by comedian Chris Rock (the director, Jeff Stilson, and executive producers were, in fact, part of the team that created comedian Rock's HBO talk show of a few year's back). This exhaustive examination of everything to do with nappy hair finds its creative kernal in a comment that Rock's youngest daughter shares with father one night -- that she doesn't have "good hair" like the people she sees on television and advertising. This prompts father Rock of a far-flung journey around the globe to see how different societies, but the least being Black diasporic society, views black hair, styles and decorates black hair, and otherwise worships and reviles black hair. Yet something was missing from the documentary -- Rock's own children, particularly the one who raises the question in the first place. Without the kids perspectives or on-screen personages to provide any sort of counterpoint to dad's efforts (outside of a few throwaway still shots somewhere in the first ten minutes of the film -- oooh, don't blink, or you'll miss them!) the journey to GOOD HAIR is criminally incomplete, and for me, real tiresome, real quick.
For me, the most nettlesome conflict between "vision and perspective" versus "representation" played itself out during the screening of PAPER HEARTS, a "hyrid" film seemingly built for the Judd Apatow Generation. Directed by Nicholas Jasenovec, the film is in many respects the creation of its screenwriter and executive producer, a comedian named Charlyne Yi who made her mark as one of the background "buddies" in the comedy KNOCKED UP. A cockeyed romance built around Yi's documentary footage seeking the answers to why people are fearful of love (and why she herself resists throwing aside her exterior smarminess for true love), I came away wondering if the narrative love story (devised by Yi and director after observing that she constantly insinuates herself into the documentary footage) was more the director's doing; or if director Jasenovec's role was subservient to serving Yi's story. I dunno. The film received big enough laughs from the audience I sat through it with, but I'm not easily swayed. PAPER HEARTS is a work of very manneristic filmmaking, and weeks later, I'm still debating in my head whether this was a work of genuine guerrilla filmmaking, or some kind of big put-on.
I see Ellen in a few weeks time, though I doubt that with a film festival of her own to work on in San Francisco she'll have time to sit down and play back with me that conversation we had that night. No doubt, The "Slumdog" Question will hound her as she sifts through another round of funding applications later this year, in the naked light of day.
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