I've lost track of the number of times I've been asked what documentaries are good for. Usually, it goes like this: "What were you trying to say in your film? Or: "What's the goal of your film?" There is also the popular iteration I call the Post Office version: "What's your film's message?" And, of course, in its most utilitarian form: "Why did you make this film?"
There's no good answer to these things for the simple reason that the question, in all its configurations, is a bad one. In these types of situations, we try to be polite and end up saying things that later become the source of eternal embarrassment and regret. The truth is that the reasons a film is made are either banal (because we were paid to, because it's what we do) or very mysterious (the impulse to give form to something that, being inchoate, cannot be explained in advance). To me, the true test of a documentary is found not in the reasons it came into being, but in the force with which it affirms its own existence. What I mean is this: more often than not, filmmakers don't manage to convince viewers that their films are necessary. Had they not existed, it wouldn't make much difference, either for the viewer (which is important) or for the person who made it (which is vital). These are the expendable films. The others – which are much rarer –, leave no doubt that, because of them, something changed. It might be our perception of things, or our empathy for the world, or film itself. The viewer knows. Something came into focus, became sharper.
Elena is that kind of film. At its core is the tragic event of a life interrupted too early. The survivors are shattered. The film puts the pieces back together, to the extent that that's possible, which is to say, imperfectly. There's no naive belief in closure, in the ability of art to restore the wholeness that existed before the drama. Rather, it's just the opposite. Through the film, one seeks to find a way of coming to terms with the irreversibility of death, learning to live with what will always be missing. If there's no neat conclusion, tied with a bow, neither is there prostration, since one needs to keep living – and if possible, once in a while, just dance a little, as in the last scene. That cheerful realism, that desire to find joy in spite of everything, is what lingers and makes a film about death succeed in affirming life so strongly. The final impression is that Petra, the director and sister, made and was made by the film, a bit like that image in which a hand draws another hand and in turn is drawn by it. Without the director, Elena wouldn't exist; without Elena, my impression is that the director would be sadder, her life trapped in unresolved mourning. She would also have been spiritually poorer, since lacking the experience of having made one of the most beautiful films I've seen in a long time. (Written by João Moreira Salles, director of "Santiago")
There's no good answer to these things for the simple reason that the question, in all its configurations, is a bad one. In these types of situations, we try to be polite and end up saying things that later become the source of eternal embarrassment and regret. The truth is that the reasons a film is made are either banal (because we were paid to, because it's what we do) or very mysterious (the impulse to give form to something that, being inchoate, cannot be explained in advance). To me, the true test of a documentary is found not in the reasons it came into being, but in the force with which it affirms its own existence. What I mean is this: more often than not, filmmakers don't manage to convince viewers that their films are necessary. Had they not existed, it wouldn't make much difference, either for the viewer (which is important) or for the person who made it (which is vital). These are the expendable films. The others – which are much rarer –, leave no doubt that, because of them, something changed. It might be our perception of things, or our empathy for the world, or film itself. The viewer knows. Something came into focus, became sharper.
Elena is that kind of film. At its core is the tragic event of a life interrupted too early. The survivors are shattered. The film puts the pieces back together, to the extent that that's possible, which is to say, imperfectly. There's no naive belief in closure, in the ability of art to restore the wholeness that existed before the drama. Rather, it's just the opposite. Through the film, one seeks to find a way of coming to terms with the irreversibility of death, learning to live with what will always be missing. If there's no neat conclusion, tied with a bow, neither is there prostration, since one needs to keep living – and if possible, once in a while, just dance a little, as in the last scene. That cheerful realism, that desire to find joy in spite of everything, is what lingers and makes a film about death succeed in affirming life so strongly. The final impression is that Petra, the director and sister, made and was made by the film, a bit like that image in which a hand draws another hand and in turn is drawn by it. Without the director, Elena wouldn't exist; without Elena, my impression is that the director would be sadder, her life trapped in unresolved mourning. She would also have been spiritually poorer, since lacking the experience of having made one of the most beautiful films I've seen in a long time. (Written by João Moreira Salles, director of "Santiago")
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