My First Film

My First Film: There has never been a time when there were many innovations in the cinema. It is not often possible to hear a new voice break through with an artist willing and able to manipulate cinematic language and form as if there were no pre-determined parameters. It is also not often that you ‘meet’ a new artist whom you would easily recognize by the very distinct signature which is his artwork.

Among these is her first film titled “My First Film,” and even though this may be Anger’s companion work in many respects, it would be hardly possible to find a film like this: it is everyone’s tragedy as a perfect hybrid of documentary, online journal and narrative feature film, Bombs Away and piece of art in which Anger reincarnates in her 25 years old past while directing her debut movie called Always all ways Anne Marie (currently listed as abandoned movie in IMDB).

Self-reflection is often used as an insult, especially by non-art practitioners but the truth of the matter is that every great art originates from self. It originates from the intent of looking deep, where nothing but the truth expresses what you wish to communicate and how. Personal art does not have a strict pattern that has to be fulfilled. Piet Mondrian’s works are purely geometrical, yet they are illustrative of his personality.

Anger has plenty. The style of the film “My First Film” evokes a great deal of sentiments however it also contains the author’s thoughts regarding the essence of cinema, womanhood and art production. She does shy away from conceding and being short-sighted as she has the courage to say our unwillingness to stand is what makes us an artist and not our ability to stand still.

Anger is an accomplished artist with experience in all mediums: music videos, theater and short films. In 2018 she started a solo live performance to showcase her first film. She made a detailed account of a hectic shooting period when everybody was pretty much stoned and she eventually lost the plot in such extent that eventually the entire crew left the project.

The fact of the matter is, after the so called ‘failure’ of her film, she had to deal with loss of self-belief. Anger resonates with everyone as the film tells a story of a journey, every human goes through the self-discovery phase in their late teenage and early adulthood.

So why did this touch me? We were merely fifteen seconds into the clip and I was already crying. ‘I am very glad you are here watching me’ brings in the very real context of how long it’s been to get to the point where she has a finished film to present to the audience. This time, the audience is not a mere witness to a performance and Anger makes us aware of this. ‘My first film’ is explicitly designed to an interactive piece of work.

Anger combines collage and personal footage with his ‘’reenactments’’, which is perhaps unfit to describe such thoughtful sincerity but elaborately put together action. His alter ego, a dark-haired woman called Vita in “My First Film”, is portrayed by Odessa Young, who embodies a chaotic and liberated spirit. She seems to be filled with great nerves, and constantly struggles to get her ‘crew’ and the ‘lead actress’ who “has been through a lot of films” in control.

Anger also sends out video clips of her two mothers, and in the narrations, she mentions about her childhood surrounding Lavender Hill, home to a gay commune in the 1970’s. So did the pioneers of Angers’ parents. In the film, Anger dramatizes the ovulation that her mother performs as a professional mime who creates a “period piece” out of it. While videotaping her mother, Vita assumes such potent expressions have an essence that makes them ‘show’ themselves’ nowhere else. She says that her idea has been rejected by a startup media company because they believe it is “too esoteric”.

Fired up (“I remember thinking that I was brilliant, so could others”, states Anger with undiluted sarcasm in the voiceover), writes a script, starts a Kickstarter campaign, gets a small crew of friends and ex-lover friends, and they begin to shoot near Lavender Hill. Vita has to rehearse screaming the word “Action!” with some conviction in her voice.

She is extremely normative in the sense of saying exactly what she wants. I must say that her boyfriend is pretty needy and does not let her be filmed because he wants to ‘talk’ to her about ‘feelings’. He copulates with her without any protection. His response is best described as “Woops!”

Anger recalls, “What I wish I could show you was something which I consider to be true”. She does. She professes, “I never believed in the cinema’s rules”. One of the recurring themes is that of Deren as well – of course, the Ukrainian filmmaker Maya Deren, who has devoted numerous writings to her cinematic theories and images.

The movement from the sand dunes in the 1944 film by Deren “At Land” fits rather nicely here: a woman stroll around and between sand dunes, disappearing and reappearing only to disappear again. Deren is quoted at length: “And so, prepared or otherwise, willing or otherwise, one must come to appreciate with full responsibility the world which we have created and now inhabit.”

For Anger, in “My First Film” she aims at achieving the goals which she considers to be true even if they do not stem from the voice of the ‘audience’ and hence, goes on to define it as one of ‘loving the creation of something which is not seen by any one’.

Another filmmaker’s first film that has been lost, in this case being Sandi Tan’s “Shirkers”, has a different narrative focus than Tan, echoing that a part of her self is missing, or the creation was the most important part of the film. Emotions while creating something can be facilitated by loving the process itself, but it can also be seen as vulnerability.

It is not about the end result, no matter how hard to come to terms with that may be. Anger Here’s how grief and satisfaction affect art. The music by Perfume Genius (Michael Alden Hadreas) is gracefully added to the frame, as if it were floating in the air, enhancing the drama and forming an impressionistic structure.

It is only when you grow that you can see your past self in a whole different and somewhat humorous light. “My First Film” is one of those where a fair portion of wisdom is productive and useful, but rather amusing at first. But Anger wouldn’t make fun of them.

The attitude of Young is too effective, too angry, too sad, too excited, too anxious ….there’s an actual person called Vita, not some virtual image. Movies that focus on “female pain” or “self empowerment narratives” seem to be in fashion now. What do such films neglect? Always staying a “badass” is as constrictive as being a “damsel in distress”. Which are those two extremes? That’s where the humanity lies.

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