Being With

Behind the lens #1 - new films, thoughts on observation, and the ethics of attention

Half a year into the new project, Grischun, and it’s time to take a moment to bridge the gap between where we began and where we are now.

For anyone curious in first-person stories from the Alps and beyond, these now live in Wandering & Wondering—my personal publication. Whereas Otherlands remains outwards facing towards the people and places in which the films are made, W&W deals with the internal interpretation of those encounters, and the questions that arise.

Since I’ve been filming with farming families in the Romansh speaking valleys of Switzerland, the project took a turn towards a more curiosity-driven, observational form.

This emerged due to the encounters with local people, how they live, and a non-judgemental curiosity that I considered important as an outsider to this place. This dynamic is both reflected in the films, and in the writing that has developed so far this year.

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The first film, Il Fö, follows the life of blacksmith and farmer Roger Rominger from Val Fex as he moves through a winter: the labour in the barn, the obligation to clear snow from holiday homes which are not inhabited, and the ancient pagan festival of Chalandamarz in which his children now carry the bells.

The second film, Otra Vart, witnesses a young farmer and forester on the threshold of inheritance. He cuts trees above St Moritz, the luxury winter ski resort, learns alpine belt making from his father, and tends to horses and cows which he knows by name.

Both films are finished and have recently been submitted to film festivals. In the meantime, myself and Lorenz Weber, my collaborator and composer for the films—are continuing to develop the project into something that can be carried long-term, over multiple years.

In the meantime, small previews of the films are shared on Instagram in order to give an insight into the development of the Grischun project.

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This approach is very different from how the first project, Serra, took shape last year.

The slow pace of filming across seasons, slowly building trust, is something that naturally doesn’t conform to algorithm logic. And that’s okay. For the integrity of the stories to remain intact, it requires a different form and a different pace. Still, for those who follow the process I thought it would be nice to provide a periodic update on how it unfolds, and the philosophy behind the approach.

This year, I’ve been taking a remote masters in Creative Documentary Filmmaking. Through this, I’ve realised that there are many ways to bake a cake.

The word “documentary” already carries a lot of assumptive baggage. Documents. Paperwork. Supposed objectivity. Of course, some of the most vocal proponents would declare that documentary is a sort of pursuit of truth, and those who developed the concept of “cinema verité” believe that a kind of neutral objectivity is indeed possible.

Without delving into the jargon, there are many approaches that can be made. A documentary can be participatory, it can be poetic, it can be the voice-of-god narration which we associate with people like David Attenborough. There is no one way to cut it.

The approach for Grischun has been a sort of fusion between modes. Poetic in nature, in how associative images cut against each other to build visual metaphors. Observational in its approach to cinematography. And collaboratively authored, in the sense that I as the director cannot make these films without the participants, who invite me into their lives, to see the world through their eyes.

The biggest change? No interviews. This became a practical constraint due to language barriers, but my biggest reasoning is rooted in the cinematic experience. When a person is interviewed, it can easily become testimony. When there is no interview, it creates a different space of perception.

Since the people who I’m filming with speak a language only spoken by a few thousand, a sense of interiority seemed important. No one is arguing for anything, no one is confessing, and no one is speaking about anyone else from above.

The protagonists speak in their own voice, in their own language, and we are invited into their world.

Without falling down an academic rabbit hole, I’ve been enlightened by my discovery of the filmmaker Trinh T. Minh-ha. One of her coined phrases, “speaking nearby”, has become a sort of guiding logic for this approach. It rejects the “speaking about” that often happens in broadcast or traditional documentaries, where assumptions are made about others. It seems to be about standing alongside the subject, without judgement, and recognising that the camera is a portal into their world of which we can know only a fraction from the outside.

Recently, I’ve had the desire to add my own interpretation: “being with”. This is something that arose as a sort of ethical approach, where film is not only about obtaining material but also about developing relationships within communities, with no expectation of receiving anything, but to allow that presence to have its own value and importance.

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I was naturally drawn to documentary because of some innate appeal towards the non-fictional world. I suppose I also felt, in some moments, the draw of righteousness that can come from shining a light on subjects that seemed important.

While I still believe in this to an extent, I feel more allured by ambiguity and artistic expression, and what Werner Herzog calls “ecstatic truth”—the illuminating force of art, be it film, poetry, writing, which can split us open into different dimensions. He is famously known for his rejection of cinema verité, which he called “the truth of accountants”.

The deliberate resistance to interviews, to broadcast style journalism, or anything else expected by assumption but without examination is something that feels increasingly important.

Finally, I will wrap up this mind-wander, which I’m calling “behind the lens” with this:

What I’m realising is that truth, whatever that means, is an ephemeral and tricky thing. It’s like a bar of wet soap, where the more you try to squeeze it, the more it slips away. Are we documenting to create paperwork? I don’t think so.

The purpose from my position is to find kernels of beauty in the mundane, to find universal relevance in the specific and the local, and to see the world through someone else’s eyes: where emotion, lived experience and the senses all play an important and very human role.

Until next time.

Adrian

Posters for the first two films of the Grischun project.