Mocumentaries: Irony or Loss of Irony?

by Özge Özdüzen /

Mocumentaries can be considered as attempts at challenging the prevalent assumption of “seeing is believing”. Up until the mocumentary tradition, I think that in most of the documentaries we could talk about some kind of a quest for truth and objectivity, obviously mostly in expository mode, but also in observational mode etc. The documentaries having such a quest generally have a tendency of taking camera as an instrument which never lies. These assumptions remind me of three divergent schools of documentary; Kino-pravda of Dziga Vertov’s, realist school of John Grierson and the American Direct Cinema. Even though what these traditions understand from objectivity is very distinct from one another, in their styles we can talk about a scientific manner towards the world that they shoot. On the contrary to these traditions, mocumentaries can be said to be anti-scientific and in this tradition one can talk about a certain distance to this quest for objectivity. However, this is not to say that in these documentaries we cannot talk about truth. Rather truth is taken as contextual which depends on decisions and/or preferences.

This issue brings us to another interrelated issue of the presence of the filmmaker. On the contrary to the traditions mentioned above such as Griersonian school or the Direct Cinema Movement in which there is no trace of the filmmaker, in the mocumentaries such as Far From Poland (Jill Godmillow, 1984), the filmmaker is present to the fullest extent. In that sense, the point where the filmmaker stands gains an explicit importance and the quest for a purified and objective position towards the world is problematized once more. Rather than objectivity or universalism, multivocality and reflexivity become the basis of these documentaries. It can be pointed out that multiple voices, even the voice of the filmmaker is heard in Far From Poland.

In most of the documentaries coming before this tradition, there is the tendency of ignoring the process of documentary making. Even though there are instances of reflexivity in the early documentaries, for example in the Man with a Movie Camera, we cannot talk about a ‘reflexive’ stance in the proper sense of the word. I think that this is because even though Vertov situates himself in his film, he is still there as an independent ‘objective’ researcher. What differentiates the reflexive mode from the early modes of documentary the most is that, rather than seeing documentary as a means to measurement and observation, it is taken as an interpretative medium and accordingly its main aim is to interpret the daily life. In that sense relating the film itself with what is done behind the camera is an important step in order to turn the documentary to an interpretative medium rather than a medium for measurement. In that sense with this tradition the process of the film as a whole could be observed by the audience for the first time. For instance, in Far From Poland before we get into the depths of the film, we have a chance to see the filmmaker’s desk, her board and other material she uses for her film. As far as I am concerned, this makes the audience feel themselves comfortable and feel as if she is a human-being like them unlike other traditions of documentaries in which you feel yourself distanced from the filmmaker and the film. In that sense rather than appearing as untidy, these materials made me feel myself ‘at home’ in the film.

For Godard, despite its honesty, the camera loses two fundamental qualities: intelligence and sensibility with the American Direct Cinema. I think that with mocumentary and reflexive mode it regains what it has lost on its way. It regains an ironic attitude towards the world like the surrealist documentaries such as Luis Bunuel’s Los Hurdes. Even though Bunuel’s Los Hurdes was not a deliberately made mocumentary, its making fun of the conventional modes of documentary made it an early instance of mocumentary. However, mocumentaries run the risk of losing this Godardian intelligence and sensibility too if the filmmaker does not avoid to make foolish jokes out of his/her material. Because of their borderline character of documentary and tv shows, they might turn to consumption objects. At those instants they turn out to become one of the useless late night talk shows on TV which you can consume drinking your coca-cola and eating pop-corn. Rather than activating your mind, they might make you laugh in a stupid manner by making fun of people like Okan Bayülgen’s shows. At this point I think that an abuse of ethical issues comes into the picture as well. For example you might go and say that ‘I am going to make a documentary about you’ to someone and ask various questions to her and shoot her real life. But then you make it a mockery about documentary and make fun of that person and situation. This means that there might be an abuse of ethical rights and besides what you make is not consisted of irony or mockery but only contempt.