Mathew J. Wilkinson’s documentary about the failure that his first feature film was. 61min imdb
Recap:
Now this is one promising title, isn’t it? I expected an hour of footage from abysmal movies, making fun of them, explaining why they don’t work and maybe how they could be done be better.
However, what we get is a rather sad film about a man who goes to the desert with A$ 30k, tries to shoot a movie, loses his lead actor, has both makeup girls involved in a car crash and spends a total of not 30k but 57k to finally come home with film footage that indeed in a way resembles the movie that he wanted to make. Too bad though that the camera did not react well to the weather, and ruined much of the film stock.
At this point of the docu, the lesson that I had learned was: when you don’t got the knowledge nor the experience nor the funding, then you better don’t make a feature film, especially not in the outbacks. What’s wrong with shooting in your neighborhood? What’s wrong with making short films? Sure, few people watch short films, and yet they are shown on festivals, so they can bring you not only experience but also reputation. And after showing them on festivals you can upload them on YouTube where you reach all the people who actually watch short films. Also I will never forget just how much Following (1998) has impressed me. It’s not a great movie, not at all, but it works. It was done without a budget, carefully scripted around the locations and props they had access to, and in the end they had a movie that really worked and didn’t even look cheap. Because they knew what they were doing. And that’s why Christopher Nolan is doing big budget stuff today.
Mathew J. Wilkinson, however, was positively destroyed and in debt after his first attempt as a movie maker. And then there is this plot twist: Wilkinson keeps saying things like that he’d rather be a failure at what he loves than a success at what he hates, the success of indie film makers is not money, it’s the next gig, and the film is the filmmaker’s baby that he wants to show to the world, no matter how many people will call this baby ugly. Which proves that Wilkinson is a clever man indeed, because now we all sympathize with him, and we are eager to watch The Nullarbor Nymph (2012) which he shills as his first actually published movie… Which doesn’t even seem to be true, because there’s also Don’t Show Mother (2010),but that’s about domestic violence and probably too depressing to fit the narrative, while everybody is ready to watch a T&A exploitation flick to show some sympathy for him (well, I am anyway).
All in all it was an interesting look into the world of independent film making, and it makes reviewing indie flicks even harder. I guess I have mentioned once or twice my admiration for people who make movies because of their love for the cinema and not for the money. Also there are quite a few nobudget flicks that I watched but not reviewed because I admired the filmmakers but disliked their films. I will have to learn how to emphasize the good things about indie films without lying about the bad aspects.
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