It is sometimes difficult to perceive anything that is not new in films. It is sometimes difficult to encounter a fresh voice, even amongst filmmakers including artists brave enough to experiment with the language of cinema and its structure. It is sometimes difficult to encounter new faces in the art world who have created a work which seems as unique as a handprint.
A few artists become recognized by their ‘Hollywood’ illusions. Zia Anger, with “My first film” stands out by completely shocking the viewer, making him forget that he is watching a hybrid film. A hybrid which in most regards can be best described as a more elaborated and a better interpreted autobiographical documentary. But in “Always Always Anne Marie,” which is being called by Anger her very first movie, the latter has since been marked as abandoned on IMDb. This penetrating inner narrative aims to inspire artists who have experienced insecurity or indecision at least once in their lives. Do not fear self-scrutiny, it is possible to create beautiful and inspired ideas while incorporating personal aesthetics in a discombobulated manner wherein uniqueness and individual representation leaves an emotional imprint. And for this, Anger has admitted her flaws. The first film is heartbreaking and is an ode to female identity and the conception of cinema and art in general.
Ken Anger began as an artist. He has always been involved with artistic ventures in all sorts of fields such as music videos, theatre or short films. In 2018, she headlined a solo live performance on her filming experience with her first film that went badly. From her perspective, it was a messed up shoot from which Anger had no hope of redeeming her vision; it escalated to a point where the entire crew walked out. This internal barrenness is a gaping scar, the ‘failure’ of the film shattered her belief about herself. All of this seems intimate, and particular to Anger’s life, which it is, yet the film goes beyond boundaries, especially for emerging artists but quite a lot more, for the times, for the transitive times of ignorant early adulthood, the forming of self and one’s understanding within the greater context.
We enter the film on a white screen with a blinking cursor in the center. We follow this up with the clickety clack of a rather ‘old’ mechanical keyboard and frantic fingers.
Note maybe this isn’t meant to be a film.
Nevertheless, it is.
This is just LOL, my videos are not the film haha
However, there’s something I want to communicate to everyone: “joy” is what the audience should take out from the first frame.
And I am grateful for your view. It is an honor to be able to witness your viewership.
A feeling more incredible than what you can imagine.
So why did this particular thing get to me? We only watched 15 seconds and I was already crying. “I am very glad that you have the pleasure of watching,” she says, indicating their long road ahead to arriving in the position that they do. Democracy is not simply an illusive object in a frame and Anger knows that. “My First Film” portrays the relationship quite differently. It portrays relationships between the client and the mental health professional in quite a different mode. They seem postmodern and neoliberal to a particular extent.
The documentary incorporates a mixture of collage and Anger’s footage, but the most visceral face of the documentary are also its reenactments. Odessa Young plays Anger (who is referred to as Vita in ‘My First Film’) and she comes across as wild, chaotic and complex. She’s mostly insecure, tries to dictate her crew and the leading ‘actress’ who ‘has watched too many movies’. Two mothers of Anger are depicted in the videos, while in voice-over, she narrates the story of her childhood near Lavender Hill, a place of couples in love with each other and the idea of humanity in the 1970s. Anger’s father got several mothers out of that background. Since one mother was a real mime, Anger decided to include one of her mother’s performances, which is quite simplistic, in which she acts out how an ovum is released. Filming her mother, Vita knows that there is something in the world which is so perfect that it deserves to exist only under certain conditions. She ‘suggests’ this thought to a new media company, but they find it ‘out-there’.
It was reminiscent of a time when Vita described herself feeling invincible, since she was unsatisfied with the films she had previously seen. What was she to do? The answer was simple: overcome herself and make the movie she has in the past demanded of others, all with the tiniest spark of motivation. She was quickly assisted by a kickstarter, a handful of people she had dated and a small group of friends. So what was in her script? Everything revolved around her having to yell “cut” on set and not getting her point across properly on set. She has difficulty addressing a variety of situations and let’s her clear points suffer as a consequence. So when she has a break, her partner decides, they can spend that time in conversation. In his mind, there was nothing unlogical about intimate contact when speaking. After a few break times, the two began the main event, this has annoying and awkward consequences for everyone. His response was about as close to perfect as a child gushing, “Oops!”
Anger does apologize to us in the first place: “I can only voice the words which I wish I could show you something genuine” which ultimately crushed her. Then she says that she started her work with a sense of rebellion and a world of imagination that she had wished to depict without attention to symmetry. Such symmetries were constant throughout the life of the avant-garde director: Deren’s early youth orbit resembled that of an exotic unreal reality, “the walking mother” who traveled to exotic America with Cosy Lushin, gave her a parented child back to her father. Julie is mainly known for several quotes that reflect her life’s work: “And so the stage was set, and yes, perhaps against my will, but I will now have to be responsible for this world.”
Anger’s film assures her that getting into such a reality was not risk free, even for herself. Each time the young director became increasingly obsessed with extreme forms of everything she was and desired problems. It was in understanding reality because the process of creating a sense of love took strong emotions. What was even more jarring and surprising for Michael’s senses was that his lens held the most basic principles of the other world and society that made him go mute when speaking about bombs.
The film “Shirkers” by Sandi Tan, which was released in 2018 and also focuses on a filmmaker’s first film that was never released, taps into the conventional narrative but resonates with Tan’s desire for the film and the love she had for it, “Falling in love with making something” is a weak yet powerful feeling. It’s not about the object, as difficult as this is to hear. Anger brings her inner and outer self and artistry on film. Perfume Genius’s music performed by Michael Alden Hadreas echoes and shifts within the scenes, illustrating and enhancing the action while painting an emotional background dream.
As you grow older, and you reflect on the time when you were young, it’s something that you can look back at and find it amusing in a way. This is probably why “My First Film” has a constant comedy throughout it. But Anger does not look at these men with scorn, instead. Young is quiet and you sense her on the screen filled with rage and sorrow with an eagerness and hope as well… Vita is an actual person rather than an image on a screen. Right now, “Self-empowerment narratives” and “female pain” cinema is the trend. The question that these films seek to answer, though, is what do these films forget? Cracking up all the time, being a “badass” is just as bad as the monster who is oppressed being “a damsel in distress”. What is in between these two extremes? Everything that is referred to as humanity.
After ‘My First Film’, the tension hits an unsurpassed high and abruptly there is a splattering white screen once more that contains a blinking cursor. There is a superstition writer who is not visible, who mentions:
“Are you there?”.
Yeah, we are here. Yes. We haven’t left. We want more.
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