Documentary movie “Muzhik” as an example of work.

• Main Authors: Altaeva Maria, 瑪麗
• Other Authors: Ho, Ping
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/2xhyfe

碩士 === 國立臺灣藝術大學 === 電影學系 === 103 === “Have you heard of the illness hysteria siberiana? Try to imagine this: You're a farmer, living all alone on the Siberian tundra. Day after day you plow your fields. As far as the eye can see, nothing. To the north, the horizon, to the east, the horizon, to the south, to the west, more of the same. Every morning, when the sun rises in the east, you go out to work in your fields. When it's directly overhead, you take a break for lunch. When it sinks in the west, you go home to sleep. And then one day, something inside you dies. Day after day you watch the sun rise in the east, pass across the sky, then sink in the west, and something breaks inside you and dies. You toss your plow aside and, your head completely empty of thought, begin walking toward the west. Heading toward a land that lies west of the sun. Like someone, possessed, you walk on, day after day, not eating or drinking, until you collapse on the ground and die. That's hysteria siberiana.” This thesis is dedicated to observation of work that our small team of two people has done while working on documentary “Muzhik” and is observing main topics of the movie: person, alcoholism and family. The idea of the movie was born in 2012 and it was shot in winter 2013. The team of the crew on set was only of two people: me, student of NTUA as a producer, interviewer, sound recording person, translator; and Mitchell Arens, student of NYU Tisch School of the Arts Asia in Singapore as a director, cameraman, editor. In this thesis I observe our documentary in terms of our main topic, method of shooting and work that we have done. It’s very hard to underestimate the work that we have done because that work was a challenge, pure inspiration and some kind of a struggle, mentally and physically. While working on that movie we were trying to get answers on main questions such as: How does this person live? What does he feel? And essentially why does he/she drink? I’ve chosen this quote from Haruki Murakami because I felt that this is kind of an answer for our questions. It’s very subjective and personal. Our documentary in general is very subjective, personal and full of compassion, probably it’s not the easiest piece of work and movie to understand to but I believe that people who can really see beyond the borders will see something more than alcoholism and cold winter in this documentary, I believe the audience will see the human being. Although technically I was working as a producer/ interviewer/ translator/ sound recording person I feel that in some way I was a co-director as well.