Peck brings his subject back to life in archival footage and in readings of his work and correspondence by the actor Samuel L. The story of the disappearance and recovery of that footage provides a whodunit tension to the film, while the footage itself-super-saturated in color, influenced by the offbeat indie films of the late ’80s and early ’90s-offers evidence of the originality behind the whole venture. The film doesn’t devolve into the kind of icky tale you might suspect, however, instead becoming a complicated and entertaining meditation on originality, punctuated with footage from the film that the teenagers made.
On a more basic level, the documentary tells the story of a teenage Sandi and her two friends, who set out to make “Singapore’s first indie film” in the early ’90s with an American film teacher, Georges, who would prove himself to be creepy for reasons beyond his eagerness to devote his free time to hanging around with a bunch of precocious and self-serious kids. Sandi Tan’s Shirkers is one of those films that defies categorization: a coming-of-age story, a mystery, possibly the pieced-together remnants of a lost work of art. And as for this list-its only qualifier is that these are the critically acclaimed, historically important, and pivotal films that a person who cares about film (and, in doing so, often cares about humanity in general) should really get to know. Once viewed as something stiff and obligatory, documentary film has, in recent years, risen to the top of the heap-thanks in no small part to some of the earth-shaking, needle-pushing, and ultimately world-changing films that are listed here, which find their focus in war, love, sex, death, art, and everything in between. Thankfully, it has since been embraced by many in China for being the groundbreaking film that it undeniably is.What makes a documentary “important”? What makes it worth referencing, or remembering, or even watching in the first place? Why, at a moment when world events are often stranger than fiction, would we veer from the vaunted, glorious escapism of big feature films ( No Time to Die, anyone?) and opt for something small and rooted in the real, instead?ĭocumentaries can be a hard sell, but it’s one that’s getting easier all the time.
That didn’t stop the rest of the world from appreciating its value and understanding that the film is not a still photo about a forbidden love but, rather, a moving canvas about the trials of life when painted upon an unpredictable landscape. The mere suggestion of the above noted relationship was enough to ban this film in its homeland after just two weeks of showings. As China experiences the violent challenges of civil war and then Japanese invasion, it bleeds into the lives of the main characters whose personal relationships are knitted upon the national conflicts. However, they’re only the on-surface attraction of this in-depth tale based on the book by Lillian Lee, who also helped write the screenplay. The journey, which starts in 1924, is an emotionally charged cinematic masterpiece presented by director Chen Kaige, gifting its viewer with an exhilarating color palette that peaks during the several Beijing Opera scenes. This story about the relationship of two men who shared a life together without actually sharing a life together begins with their reunion. “It’s been ten years since we last saw each other.”