A film that I watched for the 2016 Melbourne International Film Festival by an Australian filmmaker I feel wrings true really well as a reference point here. It was called Winter at Westbeth, and for me it was something about the circumstances of what was being documented and how the documentary was then so considered and in a way candidly delivered. Westbeth is a high rise residential complex in New York, on manhattan island, that in the 60s became a low-cost rent controlled residential complex for talented artists who were deemed applicable, low cost enough that these artists reamined to live there, incidentally into their 70s. Thus, what ends up occurring is essentially a naturally occuring aged care residential facility in a way, not that this is the clear m/o to be extracted from Winter at Westbeth. There are various documentary subjects, or characters, and based on perspective you could certainly make the case that there is a central character supported by several others, in that whoever you find most in tune with. That said, Dudley Williams does end up taking a clearly major role in a sense, as we are to find at the end he does pass away.
In a way the viewer is invited to observe, in what does end up being really quite candid, a place that has been met with the change, and how all these characters interact and adapt to this change, in their living situation, time, their age, and I feel like there is almost too much to take from this meditation of this quaint unassuming area, for a short doco that concerns a town, a change that occurs as a result of a change in the place, with Little Saigon Market being burnt down, and the afterglow and aftereffect of the manner in which the community or our case our characters being a select few members of our community then, are able to deal with this change.
Unfortunately no direct scenes cannot be found other than the trailer, but what the trailer is able to really accentuate is that there is this acknowledge that the space exists but also an understanding that I also resonate with, in that one of the most important aspects, truly of assessing change, is to follow the people, not the place, as the people are those that make the place a space, not really the other way around. So amidst all our shots that present this burnt down market, I feel like it will be really important to capture our characters, like Westbeth does, in a reflective manner, where we can really examine this change that has occured, thats where I feel will possess the greatest amount of benefit.
In Westbeth almost all of the characters are presented, as they are detailing their activities, in the shot actually doing those activities, to accompany interviews and long drawn footage of their everyday activities, and this is really executed perfectly, as we really come to understand the nuances of each person. It will be then important for us to really try to hone in on Gigi, with something as potent as “9 months without pay” to support our understanding on a base level for the kind of person she might be.