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Film reviews from Visions du Réel

For writer and director Shen Ko-Shang, character development is fundamental to movie making. “I have seen many nice films here [at the Visions du Réel Film Festival] but for me to really like a movie, the characters have to have heart,” Ko-Shang explained through an interpreter. Shen Ko-Shang, whose documentary “Baseball Boys” and film short ”Fading” were screened this week at the Visions du Réel Film Festival, shared with GenevaLunch his impressions of the festival and thoughts on filmmaking.

Film characters have to "have heart"

A native of Taipei, Taiwan, Ko-Shang travelled “half-way” around the world for the premier of “Baseball Boys.” The documentary is based in a rural area of Taiwan, characterized by its native inhabitants and traditional lifestyle.

It was this unique background which interested Ko-Shang, and inspired him to document the trials and tribulations of an aspiring Little League boy’s team in Hulien Province on Taiwan’s East Coast. “These kids are unique due to their background and rural heritage. This way of life is very distinct from my reality in Taipei and I find their experiences interesting.”

The obvious storyline in the film is the 5th and 6th grade ballplayers’ love for baseball and their individual and team journeys as they work to qualify for national championships. However, for Ko-Shang, this was at least as much a vehicle for exploring or rediscovering the magic of growing up. “As I grow older life gets more complicated and I am reminded of my youth and ambitions. I think my curiosity about young people is also about my getting ready to be a parent myself.” Ko-Shang has a newborn baby.

Writer/Director Ko-Shang (center) at "Baseball Boys" premiere

Ko-Shang spent the better part of a year making “Baseball Boys,” including moving into an apartment near Hulien Fuynan School where the children were studying, and spending long periods waiting to capture candid images from their daily lives.  “After 3 months of me living in the community, they didn’t notice the camera any longer and I was able to move about freely to film.”

This patience is well reflected in the natural tenderness as well as silly, kid’s humor on display throughout the film.

"My ideal is to continue making movies about kids"

Ko-Shang’s sentimental focus on individual histories is highly apparent in the film short “Fading,” as well.  “Fading” tells the collective history of the passing of an era marked by the demolition of an entire residential city built around Taipei’s former Shuinan military airport.

As in his full length documentary, Ko-Shang emphasizes the setting in the opening shots of this film: the viewer is led down an empty tarmac where a dog wanders aimlessly, through the strangely silent and defunct main hall of the airport lobby, and into the ghost town with front doors all ajar. ”Fading” introduces  a handful of former residents, filmed in the abandoned city as they reminisce about their lives in the Shuinan Airport residences. As of 2004, ”tens of thousands of residents” were relocated from the city, described as a series of villages in the film, to make way for a mainland Chinese consortium that will develop a series of shopping centres there.

Ironically, when asked what “Fading” meant to the filmmaker, Shen Ko-Shang responded that the work was in fact commissioned by the Taiwanese Government, possibly as a criticism of the Chinese investors. Regardless, Ko-Shang manages to fold 60 years of history and the memory of a displaced community, into this straightforward, compact film.

Shen Ko-Shang has written and directed four documentaries and one feature length film including a work for National Geographic on uninhabited Taiwanese islands. He plans on continuing his work on documentaries including an upcoming work on autism in children. Asked about his impressions of Switzerland, Ko-Shang acknowledged that he found the cuisine a bit odd:

SKS (without interpreter): “In Taiwan, we’re used to eating warm food.”

GL: “Have you tried raclette?”

Interpreter clarification: “I think he means spicy.”