Hacker Cinema
I Am Another You
2017 · Film · documentary · 80 min
Directed by Nanfu Wang
Through the eyes of a young drifter who rejects society's rules and intentionally chooses to live on the streets, Chinese filmmaker Nanfu Wang explores the meaning of personal freedom – and its limits.
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2 comments on Hacker News
The author seems, I have to say, deeply confused; about politics, art in general, and film in particular—he seems he mostly wants realistic, descriptive, non-documentary films without a traditional story arc depicting life in American poverty; even without the poverty part this just isn't something that anybody, really, is interested in from film—but most critically about his own thesis.
It's clear he is unhappy with something about portrayal of poverty in film, but he starts off complaining that there is not enough of such portrayal, making what seems to be a quantitative complaint, but then spins out of control with contradictory criticisms of qualitative features of the portrayal. This is most stark in his complaints about I am Another You where he initially blames it for being too focused on explanation rather than description and then blames it for failing to dig deep enough to explain why mental illness leads more easily to homelessness in the US compared to the rest of the West.
> If policymakers in DC (and in cities and state capitals around the country) had the Raineys in mind when making poverty policy, rather than the stubborn, racist myth of the “welfare queen”, they might produce smarter proposals that are more attuned to what poor Americans actually want and need.
Policy makers don't generally base policy on what they see in movies, and don't generally have the racist myth of the “welfare queen” in mind when making policy that effects the poor, they instead have a very clear picture of the expressed interests of the people they are interested in serving (who are often chosen, much as the story goes with the choice to rob banks, “becsuse that's where the money is”), which very often don't include the poor regardless of their lifestyle.
The “welfare queen” is an image policy makers (and policy entrepreneurs) invented to sell the policy, not a real concern at which it is directed.
The documentary "I am another you" (on Amazon, last I looked) is a great film about mental illness. The documentarian is attracted to the subject of her film based on his perceived freedom, which turns out to be an illusion.
My Best Picture of 2017.