Back in 1993, Wellington filmmaker Rachel Davies presented a short film at the Wellington Fringe Film Festival – yes, we used to have one of those – which provided one answer to the question: in a documentary, how do you present the testimony of someone who is content to be interviewed on tape but doesn’t want to be filmed? You might have a compelling first-person account of a great story but no visuals. Where’s the film?
In Davies' film Sweetness, she solved it artistically by filming herself lip-synching to the existing audio, sitting at a school desk in front of a map of the world – recreating one of those classic Kiwi school photos.
Photo: Madman
I was instantly reminded of that powerful presentation by the new Scottish documentary My Old School which also might have suffered from the fact that their key witness did not wish to have their face on camera.
Brian McKinnon achieved considerable notoriety back in 1995 when it was revealed that he had enrolled in what we would call Year 12 at his local high school despite actually being 30 years of age.
In the case of My Old School, they chose the actor Alan Cumming to do the lip-synching – chosen because twenty-five years ago he was down to play the character when another producer was trying to make a film of this story. So, he’s been a part of it for a long time already.
It’s a fantastic story beautifully told by director Jono McLeod who was a peer of McKinnon’s – known implausibly as Brandon Lee at the time – at middle-class Bearsden Academy in Glasgow.
McLeod drafts in plenty of others who were in Brandon Lee’s class, as well as a few of the teachers from the period.
It’s striking how, despite the fact that they all thought Lee looked a lot older than he professed to be, everyone gave him the benefit of what little doubt they had.
It’s remarkable how effective ‘I’ve been living in Canada’ can be in answering all sorts of mysteries.
His classmates liked him and his teachers were understandably impressed. Unlike many fabulists, he was never prosecuted – even though the whole business was odd and creepy in equal measure.
I don’t want to give too much more away as these sorts of films are often judged by how many jaw dropping moments they have and this one has plenty.
When you have so little original material to go on, you need to use it sparingly – McLeod certainly does that – but you also have to keep the story going somehow and he should be very grateful to his former classmates who – usually sitting in pairs in a reconstructed Bearsden classroom – are all winning personalities with excellent and entertaining recall. They’re neat.
And, also, even though I’m not really a fan of reconstructions, the animated presentation of the story is often very funny, with actors including the great Clare Grogan from the film Gregory’s Girl and the iconic Scottish pop star Lulu.
MY OLD SCHOOL is exempt from classification, and it is playing in select cinemas around the motu, now.
