#docufiction

Alice kept secrets.

Via SGIFF.com

Director: So Yo-hen Runtime: 101 minutes Languages: Indonesian and Javanese audio; Mandarin (繁體) and English subtitles Certification: PG13 (Singapore—smoking scenes)

Can Taman-taman (Park) be considered a documentary? The film seemed like one to me as I watched it. But there were some elements that felt contrived. Still, it won three prizes at the 14th Taiwan International Documentary Festival (TIDF) earlier this year. “The Grand Prize of the Asian Vision Competition goes to a more or less non-fiction film,” says the jury comments. I like that description: “more or less non-fiction”.

Well then, it’s a documentary talking about the experiences of Indonesian migrants in Taiwan. I say “talking” because that’s what the bulk of the film depicts: two Indonesian men, Asri and Hans, having conversations in Tainan Park. It’s mostly through their conversations and through poetry rather than visuals that we learn about what they and fellow migrants experience.

Asri contributes much of the poetry presented in Taman-taman, including a poem about a worker who picks up his girlfriend on an electric scooter. We do get to see Indonesian scooter enthusiasts hanging out in the park, and a group—either the same one or another—singing together, but other than these, we don’t observe the discussed events. Though using this elliptical technique can make the audience feel detached, it means the film avoids exploitation of the subjects’ struggles for the sake of drama, a risk of documentary filmmaking.

Speaking of the scooter enthusiasts, they appear in one of those parts that feels contrived. Because it is. After Asri and Hans talk about the scooterists, they get up from a table and walk through the park. Scooterists soon circle around them in a neat line, and the two carry on as if nothing’s unusual. In a Q&A session at the 35th Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF35), director So Yo-hen said that the first time they shot this scene, some scooterists did appear but not as many. After the filmmakers got more scooterists, Asri and Hans repeated the scene.

I’m guessing the decision to recreate the scene this way was to maintain viewer interest. I recall hearing light laughter from the audience at this moment.

But I wonder if there’s some other reason for the fictional elements in the film. For example, the radio station that Asri and Hans pretend to run, inspired by stones with embedded speakers found around the park. The two sit in a guard hut when they “host” their radio show. With its bright red lightbulb acting like an on-air sign, the hut does look as if it could be a studio. Hans blends Indonesian and Mandarin to come up with the name Ini Radio Yinni, meaning “This is Radio Indonesia”. The concept of the programme is to share stories of Indonesian migrants in Taiwan, accompanied by readings of poetry inspired by these experiences.

In a Facebook post from May, Asri says that the Taman-taman “film project sought to give voice to the experiences of migrant workers in Taiwan, with all the ups and downs of their lives”. So why blend fiction and reality? Why not use non-fiction material only? Why do we mainly hear about the experiences of migrant workers through Asri and Hans, and not through the people they speak about as well?

According to a bio provided by the 12th Momentum biennale, So Yo-hen and his filmmaking group Your Bros. “take filmmaking as a method to re-interpret reality.” In film critic Jason Tan Liwag’s review of Dorm (2021), a previous work by the group, he states that “documentary is not reality itself, but a reflection, refraction, and reconstruction of an accumulation of experiences.” Maybe this is what Your Bros. are trying to get the audience to remember.

Throughout Taman-taman, the filmmakers remind us that what we see is through their lenses. The opening scene directly shows us one crew member who’s helping to set up the shot. We also hear a voice telling Asri and Hans, who describe their roles in the film as “actors”, that they can start. Each time Ini Radio Yinni “airs”, the hosts tell listeners not to worry if they see people filming in Tainan Park, because the film might not actually be made. In the last scene that Asri appears in, there’s crew members onscreen again—well, the shadows of them and their filmmaking equipment are onscreen, all following Asri.

After my first watch, I thought it was unlikely that I’d write a full-length review of Taman-taman. I related to Asri during a scene in which he and Hans discuss their thoughts on the project so far. Asri says he’s tired of filming and doesn’t even understand what message the filmmakers are trying to convey. I couldn’t see where the film was going and was getting bored. On the other hand, Hans seems satisfied with the idea of letting the audience come up with their own ideas and says that the more he works on this project, the more interested he gets.

In the process of writing this review, I realised Taman-taman is more intriguing than I originally thought. I still relate more to Asri’s confusion than to Hans’ playful curiosity, though.

Rating: 3.5/5

English summary: Marokon Kauhu, the docufiction that I directed, on Finnish war hero Captain Aarne Juutilainen (1904 – 1976), is now streaming in Finland on Elisa Viihde.

Marokon Kauhu -dokumentti on nyt katsottavissa Elisa Viihteessä.

https://elisaviihde.fi/elokuvat/49837/marokon-kauhu

The South American tressym is an omnivore evolved from gliding kritters which evolved from domestic cats.the South American tressym is a usually peaceful animal that is somewhat domesticated still unlike their cousins the North American tressym.adapted to the hot deserts of South America they mainly eat berries and small bugs.being more prey than predator in their ecosystem and being hunted by desert apes normally.

In 1970, Frederico Fellini explored his fascination with clowns. I Clowns (or The Clowns) was a work of docufiction made on this subject, which was made for RAI television and for the cinema screen. These images are from issue #46 of cinematografia magazine published by Cappelli in 1972 and edited by Renzo Renzi -- Fellini TV, Block Notes Di un Regista (I Clowns)