台灣切片｜真實的呢喃：1990s以降的女性私電影

紀錄片學者Michael RENOV曾指出，個人紀錄片的發展，受到女性主義「個人的即政治的（the personal is political）」理念的影響。回到台灣紀錄片的脈絡，1990年代，開始有許多女性創作者，也以個人的口吻與語彙，採取「個人電影（personal cinema）」的姿態，訴說在「大寫歷史／他的歷史（HIStory）」的敘事傳統下曾被壓抑、被忽略的各種故事。

本單元以回顧性的視角，爬梳與揀選自1990年代以降開始出現的女性私電影，探索「個人的即政治的」概念於紀錄片中的實踐。這些作品擁抱生命敘事，藉著具反身性的創作觀點，切入身體、情慾、情感、家庭關係與成長經驗等面向，深刻地描繪出一個女性所面對的真實世界，也顯影結構所加諸在女性身上的種種框架。

代表圖片

How Old Are You? How Old Were You?

Using camera obscura techniques, the film contemplates the idea of bringing oneself back to the origin, the womb. As the film traverses through a series of psychological events, a dialogue is conducted between two selves – infant and adult.

The Islands

An experimental documentary consists of 35mm film photographs of three islands: Inishmore, Staten Island and Tsushima Island. By rearranging and re-filming the photographs and objects, the island is no more a mere geographical expression but a state of mind.

Transactions

Here a mother works tirelessly for rich clients so she can afford to send her daughter to school in the United States. The making of a piece of clothing is filmed in detail while we listen to a phone conversation that covers the topic of credit card expenses.

Sucker’s Love

Through magnifying scanned photos and juxtaposing old photos with the new ones, the film attempts to reexamine family photos as a way of rejecting the harmonic tone rooted in family portraits, while the moving film perforation becomes the train windows in the travel of time.

Emulsion Connection

Emulsion Connection connects photochemical and digital format, as well as the filmmaker’s carefree student life abroad and her returning to hometown. The time difference between each frame can be 1/18 second, 1/24 second, or 1 week, or even a decade.

The Window of Desire

A little ballerina begins to explore her body. Two teenage girls have their first intimate experience. Following the flow of thoughts in one’s creative process, a journey into the past reveals the protagonist’s desires experienced at various ages.

Transcript (the other version)

Immersing in the tension within the family of origin, one follows the rrumination in the meditation on intimacy.

Flow

What if everything is in a flow, what is the meaning of life derived from its sense of interconnectedness? The film observes the flow of change and rhythms of breathing through abstract moving images. A poetic state of meditative process slowly comes into being.

Small Talk

We live in the same space, my mother and I. But we are like strangers under one roof. Our only exchanges are the meals she cooks and leaves for me on our dining table. No hellos, no goodbyes, let alone ‘I love you’. Silence permeates our house as I watch her, knowing that beneath the deafening silence lies a secret that weighs heavily on her. But am I ready to hear what she has to say?

Somewhere Over the Cloud

A series of emails that the filmmaker wrote to her late mentor, the renowned American documentary filmmaker Robert KRAMER, are woven throughout the plot of a story as the boundaries of life, distance, language, identity and nationality are re-examined from the perspective of Elodie, her daughter.

Taiwan Spectrum｜Triviality that Speaks Volumes: Personal Cinema of Female Directors Since the 1990s

Documentary theorist Michael RENOV once reflected upon the importance of the feminist movement in creating new forms of documentary that investigate the subjectivity and identity of the filmmaker. Indeed, many female filmmakers in Taiwan began to adopt the idea of ‘personal cinema’ in the 1990s, telling their personal stories suppressed or neglected in the tradition of ‘HIStory’ narrative.

From a retrospective viewpoint, this program attempts to re-examine how the idea of ‘the personal is political’ was realised through documentary practice. With self-reflective tone, these works contemplate on the idea of body, desire, emotion, family and experience of growing up, while unveiling various types of restraints imposed on women by the society.