Why Me?
*1/2 out of *****

Genres
Documentary
2006
Directed by Rick Cavaggion and Martin Gordon

Kidnapped!
*1/2 out of *****

Genres
Documentary
2006
Directed by Melissa Kyu-jung Lee

Screening in the 2006 New Zealand Documentary Film Festival
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Being new at this reviewing business, I have to admit I approached the idea of seeing a movie for free with a great deal of enthusiasm.  Let’s be honest. And excitement.  Before going to see the back-to-back documentaries Why Me? and Kidnapped!, I pondered the effect of this on my reviewing, would I be over eager to enjoy these movies, and consequently encourage the giving of more tickets? I liked this idea, particularly the idea of movie tickets and felt very predisposed to enjoy any movie I saw.

However.

Originally I was going to simply focus my attentions on one of the films, but so much critique can be stretched across both that I feel I’d best give value for money, and warn you off the both.

Why Me? was a documentary concerned with the stealing of Aboriginal children by the Australian government in the 1950s.  As any one who has seen Rabbit Proof Fence or has some small knowledge of Australian history knows, this was a horrific era, from which most people involved have rarely survived intact.  However, what that same viewer already knows, is exactly what the film directors (Rick Cavaggion and Martin Gordon) choose to impart.  We see ‘olden day’ enactments of the children being taken (I knew they were ‘olden day’ because they had sepia toned the cameras), and truly awkward re-enactments of reunited families.  The film focused on four adults of the stolen generation who had traced their roots - coincidentally all through the Link Up, a government agency I suspect heavily funded this documentary – and were models of successful assimilation into Western Australian society. I found this hugely ironic as the film was protesting the Australian government’s gall in believing that the separation of the generations would achieve the Westernisation of Aboriginal people taken.  In retrospect, I believe it was likely that the two films were played back-to-back because they both had God-awful soundtracks.  Why Me sounded like they were stuck in the early 1990s – in a Paula Abdul rather then a Pearl Jam sort of way, whilst Kidnapped referred to alien abductions once as a theory, then persisted in playing alien abduction music throughout the rest of the film.

I’ve had to give this idea up unfortunately in acknowledgement of the fact that both deal with missing children.  Kidnapped! is based on North Korea’s kidnapping of 13 (the current figure) Japanese youth in the 1970s and 1980s (the 1970s photos had pretty rad haircuts).  It gives a chronological account of what a few of the victims were doing before they were kidnapped, their parent’s reaction (one father seems to be currently doing very well off book sales), the eventual media hook into the issue, a look at the press releases in regards to Prime Minister Koizumi’s negotiations into the possible kidnapping, and then negotiations for release.  We were told, and I assume, that the film-makers knew nothing of the goings on that led to these negotiations.  I think the inside dealings in regards to this, or even some speculation as to the arm-twisting that went on would have been fascinating.  Not to leave you on the edge of your seats (on the extremely slim chance that you didn’t read the papers in 2003/4) five of the kidnapped were returned, and eventually their families also.  The other seven have been declared dead in extremely suspicious ways – one girl’s ashes were returned, and upon analysis, (analysis of a superior Japanese sort we were told) the ashes were proven not to be hers.

Despite finding this a fascinating topic, especially in regards to the politics of it all, I found myself very frustrated, as the whole film was very vague on specific detail, and focused on the Japanese public’s disgust with the government’s apathy, and non-militant stance, without really addressing the other political drivers of this.

Finally, these movies would be highly appropriate documentaries for 14 year olds - I base this primarily on the fact that both go on for exactly 52 minutes – a school period.  Also, neither gave the highly enjoyable ‘slow down at crash sites’ nitty gritty detail, making them highly sanitised and highly appropriate for schoolboys.

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