Dong Kim screening response: Sherman's March - and the beauty of documentary filmmaking!

Sherman’s March was a really fun documentary about a journey into the filmmaker’s real life. The film is very self-reflexive, as we constantly hear the voice of the filmmaker, him planning the documentary, the hidden variables of romance, his change of mind, and so on. The filmmaker walks the historical path of Sherman’s march in the Civil War era, but it is strangely about his own minds and feelings. The subject matter of the documentary will be ‘the improbablility of life, such as meeting a girl who was accidentally filmed the other day in a blind date.
Like many things in our lives, filmming documentary is all about trying to controll the unpredictable situation. Planning a self-documentary itself has a flaw that something totally unexpected may happen and change the direction of the documentary. Watching this film while I was planning my documentary about this Homeless newsletter gave me a lot of things to think about. Everything seemed perfect until I brought the camera out and find out that Edge wasn’t out there that day. Sometimes, I had to miss a golden moment because I was in the middle of changing the battery. This unpredictability can be a drawback of documentary filmmaking, but the filmmaker of Sherman’s March makes it a very interestng subject matter.
I found it most amusing and interesting at the same time whenever there is a motel scene with the filmmaker by himself talking to the camera. I guess people have to face their true self when they are bythemselves, especially at nighttime. When the actress girl leaves for her audition, the filmmaker is left alone in a double sweet room, saying something like ‘I don’t know where this documentary is going now.’ This somewhat miserable moment(laugh) in documentary fimmaking was something that I could totally understand and sympathize. It is every documentary filmmaker’s common sense of being lost, and through the honest narration, the film makes the viewers feel that eventually the film is about themselves and their lives. The honesty of the filmmaker makes it very interesting and focused. I think ‘self’ is always a good subject. Everyone is different, but that is why we get to imagine ourselves in that situation and have fun.
By the way, I came to know that the filmmaker got married with one of the girls he met in the movie. What a wonderful uncertainty are we living in!