Mokumentari is a television and cinematic genre of feature films. Its main feature is to imitate the documentary of what is happening on the screen, as well as hoaxes and falsifications. The genre was born in the USA, where the term appeared. In other countries, they use this borrowed word to designate it or call such works pseudo-documentary films and pseudo-documentary. In this article we will talk about the features of this genre, classic examples.
Definition
Mokumentari is a genre that appeared in America in the 50s of the last century, which became a kind of response to the commercialization of documentary films. The term itself comes from English words, which in translation means “fake” or “mock” and “documentary”.
Being a kind of parody of documentary contemporary at that time, this genre includes typical techniques - a large number of obvious lies, misinformation, and the use of production scenes in a documentary. The main thing is that all these methods and techniques are brought to the point of absurdity.
Features
Outwardly, muco-commentaries are a documentary film in which all the external signs of this genre are present. However, their subject, in contrast to the present documentary, is fictitious, only specially disguised as surrounding reality.
In some cases, in such tapes in the genre of moquimentaries, an illusion of the reality of what is happening is created. This can be achieved through the participation of celebrities, other real people. Often mucomentaries are comedy films that become satirical and parody.
The docudramas are presented in a more serious tone. This is a hybrid genre of feature films in which the main emphasis is on the reconstruction of historical events with the help of modern actors. By external signs, they are fully consistent with films in the genre of moquimentaries. It is also used to analyze current phenomena and events using the example of a fictional subject to which the picture is devoted.
Often, mucciumentary paintings are made in the form of documentary historical films with various specialists and the use of the chronicle. Experts at the same time discuss the events. A variation in the “cinema believe” genre is also possible when the film crew accompanies people with whom certain events occur. Often such works become improvisations, as this helps to maintain the level of reality of what is happening and truthfulness. Examples of such tapes can be found back in the 50s of the last century. The earliest is a film about a spaghetti crop in Switzerland, which was shown on British television in 1957 as an April Fools' joke.
The pseudo-documentary form is also used in dramatic works.
Calloden
One of the first paintings in the genre of moquimentaries is Peter Watkins's film Calloden, which was released in the UK in 1964.
The film tells about the battle of Calloden between the Jacobite rebels and the British government forces, which occurred in 1746. The narrative is built in the form of a television report, which tells about the situation of the parties on the eve of the battle, describes the course of the battle and its consequences.
The film has a lot of "interviews" with participants in the events, the role of which was performed by unprofessional actors.
"Designer red"
In the list of mockumentaries there are also domestic works that began to appear from the 90s. In particular, we are talking about a fantastic pseudo-documentary horror film by Armen Petrosyan and Andrei I, The Red Designer, which was shot in 1993.
It is based on Thomas Mann’s novel “The Magic Mountain” and the idea of trying to create artificial people in the USSR in the 40-50s. The picture is divided into several chapters and has two storylines - fiction and documentary.
In the artistic part, the visual series mainly consists of the same type of shooting hallucinatory content. The documentary is based on in-kind filming of operations for transplanting toes onto the wrist, moments from the life of fused twins.
Forgotten Silver
In 1995, directors Peter Jackson and Costa Bouts filmed Forgotten Silver. This is a pseudo-documentary study of the life and work of Colin Mackenzie. This is one of the pioneers of cinema, a New Zealand director who made many discoveries in the first third of the 20th century, far ahead of his time. In reality, Mackenzie never existed.
At the same time, the film consists of an interview with his widow, statements by modern filmmakers, archival footage, which supposedly were accidentally discovered by Jackson many years after the death of the New Zealander.
"First on the Moon"
Another example of domestic mokeymentari - tape Alexei Fedorchenko in 2004, "First on the Moon." The picture describes the events of 1938, when Soviet scientists, in conditions of increased secrecy, are going to send the first spaceship with a man on board to the moon. Intelligence agencies are actively recording everything on cameras. Select the best pilots who will fly. Among them is the main character Ivan Kharlamov.
After starting, an accident occurs. The missile does not get in touch, the designer is hiding abroad. Assumptions about what happened to the rocket appear when a strange meteorite falls in Chile.
At the end of the 20th century, several enthusiasts are trying to study the history of what happened, to understand what happened then. They once searched for secret materials, found eyewitnesses of those events.
"Borate"
One of the best mokeymentari is the comedy tape of Larry Charles, the main role in which was played by the British comedian Sasha Baron Cohen. He plays the Kazakhstani journalist Borat Sagdiev, who comes to the United States, where he meets different people.
According to the plot, the main character, by order of the Ministry of Information of Kazakhstan, goes to America with his producer to make a documentary film reportage.
In the USA, he watches one of the episodes of the series “Rescuers Malibu” and immediately falls in love with the character Pamela Anderson. He buys a right-hand drive ice cream van on which he is going to Los Angeles to marry the actress.
On the way, they continue to make their film. Meet with feminists, spend the night in a motel owned by a Jewish couple. Borat runs away from the hotel, because, according to the film, in the Kazakhs' view, Jews are the embodiment of universal evil, capable of transforming into any creature. Hence the famous episode in a hotel room when buddies start throwing dollars, trying to pay off the cockroaches that they mistook for the Jews.
In the final, he fails with Anderson, instead of her marries a black prostitute, with whom he returns to Kazakhstan. The tape has a lot of scabbling jokes below the belt, which is why in some countries its rental was prohibited.
Most of the actors in the film were laymen. The tape was shot without a script.
In Russia, the picture did not receive a rental certificate, since the Goskino considered that for some it could become insulting. This was the first time in history when a non-pornographic film was banned from showing in the Russian Federation.
"Paranormal"
In horror films, moquimentaries have recently become a popular and frequently used trick. One of the most successful examples is the Oren Peli low-budget film Paranormal, released in 2009.
The story is built around a young couple who moves to a two-story mansion in California. For several weeks at night, husband and wife hear strange sounds that seriously bother them. It turns out that Katie has been haunted by an unknown ghostly entity since childhood. She appears wherever a woman appears. To find out what is really happening, Mika buys a camera that will record everything that happens in their bedroom.
On the very first night, the camera captures the steps of the unknown at about two in the morning. The next day, the couple invite a psychic who claims that this creature is not a ghost, but a demon. Therefore, it is advised to contact a demonologist.
Mika is opposed to the demonologist’s participation in their life, therefore she sets up her own experiments by recording an appeal to the demon. On the fifth night, Katie wakes up from a nightmare, at which time something falls below. Mika claims that the monster wants to get in touch with them, so they need to get a spiritualistic board. On the 15th night, the camera records how Katy first stands near the bed in front of the sleeping Mick for about two hours, and then rides on a swing in the yard. She herself does not remember any of this. Soon, the couple find out that the demon's tracks lead to the attic, where Katy’s old photo appears at a long-burned house.
On the 19th night, a woman feels some presence next to her. On the 20th demon grabs her leg and pulls her to the stairs. Mika manages to recapture his wife. The next night they agree to spend at the hotel. However, at the last moment, Katie offers to stay home. At night, she again gets up, like a sleepwalker, goes down, after which cries for help are heard from there.
The movie has two endings. In the standard morning, Miki’s corpse is discovered, and Katie’s body remains undetected.
"Troll Hunters"
The Norwegian painting by Andre Ovredal is another use case for the mockumentary in horror. The 2010 film tells about meetings with trolls in the forests and mountains of this Scandinavian country.
The documentary is shot by a group of students who are trying to investigate the cause of the mysterious killings of bears. They suspect that this is the work of a particular poacher, but when they try to interview him, he chases them away.
The Bay
Another pseudo-documentary horror film in 2012 was directed by Barry Levinson.
The Gulf tape is based on professional and amateur videos in which residents of a small town in eastern America talk about their epidemic. The parasites living in the Chesapeake Bay mutated so much that they switched from eating fish to attacking people.