Friday, April 9, 2010
ALMA
Ok, so the story in this one is the real draw. But, I wonder if there are discussion points about the film's construction we can forward/ For example, that the film was almost two years in filming and another three in editing (they took there time here) leaves me wondering about the construction of time in the film. That is, there is no real time marker running through the film ("two Christmases later..." sort of thing).
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Addressing the display of time in the film, Alma did seem to have no time markers of any kind. However the viewer is led to assume that a long amount of time passes in the film due to the narrative content. The viewer can see different stages of the characters lives that must have had a significant passage of time. For example, the time leading up to and the trial itself, in the film, gives the impression of months of time passing in just the few minutes filmed about the trial. I think in this way the film takes an informal stance on time to match the overall content of the film. Being a film about the complex mother-daughter relationship and its effects on the daughter involved, the very existence of the content, depicting the different stages of Margie's life, from childhood to adulthood, renders the use of formal time markers redundant.
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ReplyDeleteThe absence of 'time' is seamless in most of the film and awkward in others. The only apparent markers are Alma's diagnosis and her court case. In these two instances we seem to follow a sequence of events. Otherwise, as Direct Cinema and Verite' would have it, time has no relevance except for the structure laid out by the filmmakers. Of which, the awkward moments when Alma and her daughter are talking on the sofa about the photos creates a certain amount of disorientation for me. I find it awkward in that I wanted to place that conversation within the context of everything else that has happened. The clever revealing of the nudity in the photos until that conversation takes place not only adds for shock value, but i felt a little confused. If this is the first time Margie is finding out about her abuse..what has been the nature of her relationship with her parents leading up to and following that 'reveal'? Because of that, I don't know if this is filmmaker clever intent, but I would be prompted to watch ALMA again simply to place my own time markers around that moment for clarity's sake.
ReplyDeleteI see from the comments above that everyone found the timelessness of the film an important factor... to me personally though at times the events were a bit confusing because of the lack of time but I thought it was more interesting than what not. If documentary is really suppose to try to 'represent' life as is then are people really bound by time? Meaning time governs our lives night, day, hours, minutes, seconds but our minds, memories are not governed by time. Like the film in our memories we get that we look different or things are different because of we realize that a thing called time has passed or not passed but we are not fully truly remember the time of day to the hour, day, month, etc.
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ReplyDeleteI think that many films could take a lesson from this. Time and its passage was meaningless for this film, it wasnt needed and in my opinion I think the film did better for itself by leaving out "time markers". The ever apparentness of the lack of time passage in the film gave the viewer a looking glass through which they could view the characters withought the hassle of "day 1, day 2" that most films deal with.
ReplyDeleteAll in all, the choice of the film makers to structure the film in this way gave it a very interesting look and feel that you couldnt have in movies with less transparent pacing.