Portraits: Traces of Faces

In painting, a portrait is usually just a person in a frame. In film, a portrait is, most conventionally, 58 minutes of a person in a frame. Meeting someone in this way gives the impression of an actual conversation, but one where the line is just open one way. Oscar Niemeyer by Fabiano Maciel is an example of this format with most of the film spent looking at the talking architect and his work, mixed with archive footage and interviews with people who know him. But a portrait in film can also be something else.

Sonja Lindén portrays her father Krister in No Man is an Island using her advantages in terms of access and knowledge beforehand to create an intimate portrait without imposing any obvious information. Lindén lets the small details speak for themselves; press clips her dad has put on his walls, the songs he hums and the duties he carefully fulfils soon give the viewer a surprising feeling of having gotten close to this man living alone on an island. As the film proceeds, family relations elegantly unfold by the recordings of Krister’s phone conversations. Iranian film Tinar by director Mehdi Moniri about a cowherd boy in Darmavand is similar in cinematographic style, but has the important difference of using the boy’s voice as narrator. This creates an impression of the subject itself telling his story, which is effective, but not necessarily closer to ‘reality’ since a voice over often is strictly scripted and edited.

A Road to Mecca: The journey of Mohammad Asad by Georg Misch uses the framework of a portrait to talk about something bigger. Ukrainian born Jew Leopold Weiss, who after converting to Islam changed his name to Mohammad Asad, has left a trace of footsteps that the film follows. But the places he visited have changed. Characters in the film speak mostly of the man as a concept, his theology and influence on Islam and the places he lived. Mohammad Asad himself is seen in pictures, his voice on tapes played on a forgotten recorder in a mountain of electrical devices. The man becomes the tool for visualizing the changing of time and an example for a portal to the other side of the fence that stands between East and West. In this film there is no friction with truthfulness, since the person portrayed is dead.

The critically acclaimed Putin’s System by French director Jean-Michel Carré is a different example of how to make a portrait without meeting the person. In this case the filmmaker had to rely on archive material and interviews with other key figures, since Putin seems out of reach. The art in this case is to compile and structure the infinite amount of existing material and wisely choose people that will help draw up the contours of the man to be portrayed. Nevertheless, had Carré been able to access Putin himself, it’s quite possible he wouldn’t get any wiser from that, because what is the chance of the former president of Russia giving away the slightest part of his self-insight?

Zinedine Zidane in Zidane, un portrait du 21e siècle by Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno, is not saying anything at all. This is a man in a frame, but mostly just pieces of him, in combination with his sounds. It’s a portrait of his physicality, which actually defines him as a sportsman. This is sensing someone. The film celebrates Zidane’s craft and takes the viewer right into the sensation of action on the field.

Someone talking about their own life can be questioned for actual worth, since the perception one has of oneself always differs from what others may see or think. On the other hand, this very thing might cause the feeling of betrayal sometimes experienced by those portrayed. Who ever feels like someone has presented them well? Sometimes, getting a sense of the context and space around someone or a view of traces left behind, can be just as if not more insightful, then a verbal description on camera.

By Anna Weitz and Maartje Alders