*Disclaimer: Contains spoilers
"Shirkers" | Netflix
Summer 1992: In the midst of teenage angst and rebellion, three girls decide to become pioneers and create a film the likes of which has not been witnessed before in their side of the world.
Sandi Tan and her friends were different. They wanted to be and they made sure that they were. They desired to be free and to be punk. To love the unloved and know the unknown. Nothing was worse than being ordinary. Normal was synonymous to boring. Death before mundanity.
And so, they wanted to create a film that was of them and their kind. A teenage serial killer in Singapore, blazing her own path and reaching her own end.
There is a quote from Orson Welles that I've always loved and that I think encapsulates their rookie film effort. It was on where he found the confidence to direct Citizen Kane. He answered:
"Ignorance. Sheer ignorance. There is no confidence to equal it. It's only when you know something about a profession that you are timid or careful."
These girls did not think of what they could not do, instead they believed in what they could and made it happen.
The result is nothing short of a breath of fresh air. The clips from their original film interspersed into the documentary create a world that is both so vivid and yet so dreamlike. The colors jump out of the screen and give life to a Singapore of a time that has passed and will never return, only immortalised in film forever. To hear how these girls managed to create a film like this with nothing more than their spirit and love for film is gripping and inspiring for a film lover like myself.
"Did you ever read the script? Did you feel it was childish?"
"Yeah, but that was the beauty of it, right? It was so personal, wasn't it"
This movie is not about Georges Cardona. We see him, hear about him, but who he really is isn't important. His stories, for all we know, are made up. Nothing but fragments from his movie-obsessed imagination. It's interesting how people who live and breathe movies tend to emulate the characters they love. Netflix has another documentary related to it but I probably shouldn't mention its title considering as this is a spoiler (đ±).
It is ironic how Cardona wanted to be a character so badly and yet this documentary barely makes him one. It's not about who he is or where he came from, but about the one grave thing he did that makes him a part of this movie. He was and will be remembered as a manipulator and destroyer of dreams. That is the end of his mythology.
It's a bit funny hearing about how 'Ghost World' reminded Sandi Tan of 'Shirkers' because I was convinced around a third of the movie that she must be a real life version of Enid. You can see it in the way her friends describe her and the way she describes herself. Just like Enid and based on her voiceovers, Sandi Tan enjoys theatrics.
It must've been an extremely cathartic experience to create this documentary. To be wronged and yet live out your dream of having your life be a movie itself because of it. It's a rollercoaster of emotions within an hour and a half of runtime.
For a small act from one jealous man to do so much damage. To disappear with a piece of art that could've greatly impacted cinema as we know it today. No one was doing it like them then.
At least we have 'Shirkers' today, not as it was intended but in another form that still celebrates what the original was truly about: a love for the art of independent film.