My First Film
It’s unusual to discover something new in literature today especially when it has already been ‘done’ so many times. It’s rare to see a voice that’s never been there before, an artist with the audacity to engage with form and language of the film as they were never engaged before in a way that rules do not exist. It’s rare to “come across” an artist with a style so intimate and singular that it’s akin to an artist’s own mark.
One such artist is Zia Anger who has produced the film called My First Film which is a hybrid documentary/online-journal and narrative feature as well as a re-enactment of the writer’s 25 year old self attempting to create a first film entitled Always All Ways, Anne Marie (a film which currently occupies the “abandoned” slot on IMDB rather than an active one). Navel gazing, as it is often derogatively described, is often wielded against artists by others thankless of their craft but the truth about the craft is, it, creative as it is, does emanate from the individual. It comes from a vulnerability which does not fear the content but the means that will be utilized to convey that message. In a way, elements of the sub genre do not even have to have a distinctive origin or pattern to them. The abstract paintings of Piet Mondrian are just as personal as the geometric paintings he is famous for. Anger’s exposition on these matters is extensive. A great deal of emotions can be witnessed along with containers of ideas regarding cinemas, feminine identity and art creation in Anger’s film My First Film. Accordingly, Anger displays a measured understanding of her limitations and willingess to face the likelihood that what universalizes us is not the perfection, but the imperfection that defines the artist.
Amazingly, from a very young age, Anger had been occupied with various forms of art. She pursued music videos, theater, and short films among other art forms. In mid 2018, Anger set off to tour the world performing by herself for the audiences and about how it was making her very first directed film. According to her, there was chaos during the shooting, mostly due to everyone being high and her losing control where the entire crew eventually walked out. She describes the internal conflict of the defeat of the film as a paradox. This is all very specific to Anger and her story but the film, however, has a more global impact and not only for artists but for any person who is reinvigorating himself or herself through the periods of adolescence and self discovery.
The beginning of the film is very simple it is a blank screen with the initial cursor. Immediately after that, there is a sound of a keyboard which is ‘old-fashioned’ according to today’s standard as it is only a decade old.
I mean seriously, how could that possibly have affected me? Fifteen seconds in and I was already sobbing. However, it is worth noting, “I am really happy you are watching” Ms. Anger is thankful to her target audience for being patient throughout the process of creation. Anger knows her audience. She knows that we are not in a passive mode but ‘an active voice’ of sorts. The title of this last work, “My First Film”, encourages reticence.
Anger employs collage and personal footage, coupled with the ‘re-enactments’ (not quite the right term for something as complex and profoundly experienced). Vita, whom Odessya Young plays in Anger’s film ‘My First Film’ Anger in the film, is a violent, liberated and chaotic woman whose feelings are always on the verge of exploding. She often appears confused and does an awful lot of uncontrolled arm waving trying to assert authority not only over her crew but also her raw and very ‘movie watched’ lead ‘actress’. Anger includes clips of her two mothers and talks in voiceover about her childhood in Lavender Hill in the 1970s, when a gay commune thrived. Anger’s parents belonged to that milieu. She shows a clip of her mother, a professional mime, during her menstruation performance, where she acts out ovulation. Looking through the lens, Vita knows she is shooting her mother for some important reason, for this place is so special, so itself that nothing can replace it. She discusses this concept with a fledgling media outfit and they think it is “too esoteric”.
Fired up, writing a script, starting a crowd funding campaign, calling friends and ex hookups to get them to help shoot around Lavender Hill. “I pretend she wouldn’t like that she has to practice yelling ‘action!’ but she does,” Vita has to practice authority. She portrays a recognizable struggle as she must tell people what she wants. Constantly her boyfriend steps in between shots and wants to “talk” about his emotions with her. He just comes inside of her with no condom. His response is like, “Oops!”
“I have a desire I want to use this image that will appear before you and it will be authentic to what I am trying to convey.” She does. She further points out, “I seldom had any faith in the cinema’s codes.” Another of the themes is the Ukrainian female filmmaker, Maya Deren (1917-1961) whose ideas of making cinema she wrote with passion. Fragments from Deren’s 1944 movie At Land: A girl is trudging forth past sand hills, disappears from one side and reappears from another, repeats the action as though she has lost her bearings. Deren is quoted with so many lines: “And so, ready or not, willing or not, you must come to comprehend with full responsibility the world which we’ve now created.”
My First Film is angers attempt at responsible comprehension of her world, which in this case she describes as ‘falling in love with creating’, although there is no prospect of anyone witnessing the creation.
The acclaimed Sandi Tan, in her 2018 film “Shirkers” that also focuses on a filmmaker and her lost debut film, takes an interesting but more conventional turn as she is shown during the course of the film wanting for what she created and the effort she put in it. For instance, the process of ‘falling in love with making something’ is serene yet it is difficult given how the outcome is almost never the sole focus or measure of success. Anger brings her artistic and emotional turmoil to the masses through the camera. The soundtrack composed by Perfume Genius who goes by Michael Alden Hadreas wraps around the images for added depth, allowing it to serve something akin to a beautiful soundtrack.
It is only in the olding years that one’s childlike nature can be looked at and the past self can laugh at one’s innocence. “My First Film” has many of those. However, there are those that point ‘too’ much love back to Anger. On one end of the universe we have anger and sadness building up and the other end we have much more slightly softer emotions as the blending of all emotions is why Vita can never be looked at as an avatar. There is a massive industry selling ‘self empowerment narratives’ and film containing ‘female pain’ but these movies are also often criticized. What do these films leave out? Constantly being a ‘badass’ is only as constraining as being a ‘damsel in distress’ what is in between these two polarities? Most of civilized world.
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