Forgotten Silver
(with the short, “Signing Off”) www.firstrunfeatures.com
The short, Signing Off, was a wonderful New Zealander farce about a DJ going to extraordinary lengths to honor a request. It’s definitely not realistic but it is really clever and funny. And even poignant - the NZers, like their British cousins, have managed to hold on to the art of keeping characters sympathetic while making them funny, a skill all but lost to Hollywood.
Anyway, Colin McKenzie directs and I swear I will see everything else he does based on this short. Bruce Lynch’s music was very exciting as well. It’s nutty and funny - a DJ’s last show after over 20 yrs, and his one remaining listener makes a request - he will do anything to honor it - including dive into a rat infested sewer and…well, it’s great chucks, mate.
Forgotten Silver is a mockumentary shot entirely in the realm of artifice (not conceding to reality as Spinal Tap and Waiting for Guffman and When God Spoke do) and in the style of A&E’s Biography. It’s absolutely true to the bowing and scraping homages we Americans produce - but it too is New Zealander. One of the co-directors/writers is the venerable Peter Jackson, better known for Meet the Deedles, Heavenly Creatures, and Dead Alive. The other is Costa Botes.
I took shamefully few notes but Forgotten Silver details the prodigious life of a “lost” filmmaker and his incredible advances that were lost to history…until now. Production Designer John Girdlestone had a daunting task to create “historical” equipment and stagings for the archive photographs of the film genius XXX. This supergenius filmmaker, posthumously inducted into the pantheon of cinema greats such as D.W. Griffith, Orson Welles, and more, created the first talking picture in 1908, the first color film in 1911, but madness and poverty and the usual tolls drove him into obscurity.
I think my companions and I were the only ones who either knew enough about basic film history to get the anachronisms, or the only ones who knew it was a joke. Without a hint of irony the credits thank the widow of XXX and make no attempt to destroy the illusion. Lost cities built by hand over a decade for an epic film slashed into pieces by Miramax? Indeed. My companions and I were laughing uproariously, for the first half. The second half slowed down some but was still very interesting and beautifully executed.
It will surely be as elusive to find in the video stores as any of the late genius’ work, but if you can see it, do see it.
*Note: There is a DVD of Forgotten Silver available via Amazon.com. Check Hollywood Video.
