Seven veils

Forgotten Silver

(1996)

Brilliant, if accidental, timing, watching this shortly after Hugo. That was fiction based on early cinema fact; this is convincing "documentary" about fictional early cinema. Knowing that it was a "mockumentary," I made a point of paying attention to when the first veil falls away: not until more than 7 minutes in, meaning that even attentive viewers would (or at least could) have been carried along for about one-seventh of the TV-slot film. And indeed, what's beautiful about this film is that it doesn't chuckle and pat itself on the back, like, say, This Is Spinal Tap (and don't get me wrong--I love that film). Instead, a young Kiwi filmmaker named Peter Jackson, who had by this time introduced us to Kate Winslet but not to Gollum, had the confidence to go with the soft sell: the film is funny, but not guffaw funny; it's smart funny, wise funny, with a reverence for what is being parodied. All young filmmakers with an impulse to try too hard should watch this and see what you get when you let your material lead you where it wants to go.