CARGO and Short Interview with Laura Waddington by Ki Wong

Laura Waddington:

For the last few years, I have been filming with a small DV camera. I love the freedom that this camera gives me to work alone. In my films, I am trying just to look at the world in a simple way. When I am shooting, I film instinctively, going towards the things that touch me without thinking too much about what the final form of the film will be. The people I film are often living in a situation on the edge of things – the sailors on a cargo ship in CARGO or the Iraqi and Afghan refugees secretly crossing Europe, whom I am presently filming for my film Border. During the shoot, I live in a nomadic way often not knowing in which country I will be the next week or what I will find. Often, I build up very intense bonds with people who I will probably never see again. I think it is a huge privilege to make films in this way. I feel I get to meet so many people and discover the world from a different point of view. I do not think much about the length of the film I am making. CARGO was a short film and Border will probably be long. I believe each film has its own length and that you cannot impose a length on it. The advantage of making short films is that since they cost less, producers are more open to experimentation. When I go to short film festivals, I am often amazed by the large variety of films from so many different places.

 
CARGO
 
She was the only young woman on a large ship full of Romanian and Filipino sailors heading for the Middle East. During the six weeks that she spent on board, even when the ship was moored in a passing port, the crew members were not allowed to disembark. They could only play cards, sing songs, or tell stories to kill time, their lives tedious and trapped. Sometimes she would secretly film the life of the sailors: a man stealing wood on the dock, a sailor fishing from an abandoned pier, a seaman begging the captain to take him back to his country.. The whole film is blurry, the slowed down video and freeze frames make the entire journey feel like a poetic depiction. The young woman recounts her emotions and the stories that she hears and sees from beginning to end, allowing the audience to wander between reality and inner world. The uncertainty and seemingly forgotten state in which the crew memebers live, creates a yearning for the peace of settled days on land. She had always thought that going to sea meant freedom but surrounded by cargo and huge shipping containers, she realizes that she hasn’t really visited any place at all. This was a journey without a destination.

Through this young woman’s perspective: a group of people live out a monotonous life in insecure surroundings. The images are shaky, the camera’s slow movements and the photographic effects blur the pace and rhythm of their activities. The shots linger with a trailing effect, and their stuttered nature make it difficult to discern whether they are moving quickly or slowly. Understated and downplayed, even the most stimulating scenes appear of little importance; the furtiveness of a theft no different from the leisurely fishing and the singing and dancing – just images captured by a lens. What is gleaned from the crew’s life is the director’s perplexity. It feels as if the actors are playing supporting roles in the images, the central protagonist, the one carrying the camera, hidden behind the screen.

Ki Wong

巨輪上都是羅馬尼亞籍及菲律賓船員，就只有她一個女孩子，目的地是中東。在船上的六個星期，縱使船停泊在途徑的碼頭，船員都不被允許下船，他們唯有玩玩牌，唱唱歌或說說故事來打發時間，生活顯得乏味困局。有些時候她偷偷拍下了船員的生活情況：一個在碼頭偷木的男人/水手下船到廢置的碼頭釣魚/乞求船長載他回國的人…全片影像模模糊糊，將錄影減速或定格，富有詩意地描述整個旅程，女孩從頭到尾都旁述著她的心情及所見所聽的故事，使觀眾游走在現實和內在世界。片段中船員不隱定及被遺忘似的生活狀態，使人渴望那踏在地上的安隱日子。一直以為出海是自由的她，被一件件巨大的貨櫃箱包圍時，察覺到原來什麼地方也不曾到過，這是一個沒有目的地的旅程。

從女孩的眼睛看去，是一群動盪環境中過著平穩生活的人們。畫面搖晃，鏡頭緩慢移動，攝影特效模糊了活動節奏，影像拖著長長的尾巴，似斷未斷的難以確定是快是慢。穩定淡然，再刺激的場面都微不足道；偷竊的鬼祟跟釣魚的悠閒無異，載歌載舞僅是鏡頭的留影。從船員的生活讀到的是導演的納悶，畫面內的似是配角、主角執著攝錄機，藏在螢幕後。

Wong, Ki. “Interview with Laura Waddington” Cream Magazine, Hongkong 2002, pp. 142

(With thanks to Suky Gu for co-ordinating the English translation)