Czech Dream
Followed by Czech Peace (2010),After seeing this documentary "Ceský sen" (Czech Dream) by Vít Klusák and Filip Remunda in 2004, I do really love this documentary. It is funny and creative. It basically describes two film-making students made up a supermarket which did not really exist and did all kind of advertisement to grab people's attention. Finally, thousand of people came to the "fake" supermarket and then they found themselves cheated by these people. In the process of making all kind of advertisement, such as post cards, direct mails and so on, we can see the sound guy, microphone and all other devices and equipment while they are interviewing with others. In most documentaries, directors may prevent audiences seeing the equipment they are using, but in this film, they purposely showed that to the audiences - remind us this is a movie - this is a game - a fake one! It is ironic that people think documentary should show the reality and the truth. However, people in this film thought that all these were fake - not real. However, in my personal opinion, these two directors did not just "cheat". I think they just used different ways to achieve their purpose. "Cheat these filming people" is merely one way to achieve their goal. Just like Discovery Channel, if directors want to film animals, they also have to do some "particular" ways to achieve their purpose. In this film, the filming objects become from other animals to human being. Thus, I do not think what they did is cheating. Instead, what they have done is just one way to achieve their goal - to see these people's response and show how important the mass medium is. Besides, these consumers did not lose anything - including money. In addition, they have warned people in advance, so I think what they have done is okay. This documentary can be seen as a psychological experimental documentary - then their "cheating" just becomes a way for testing. All other crews who helped make posters, painting and advertisement were not right or wrong. They just did what they did - which were just like props in most films. Besides, they used "tax money" to set up everything and then filmed them out. I did not think they wasted the money, because their movie became many people's discussion subjects and made people think more in mass medium and advertisement matters. By and large, the money they spent is worthy. The dream the two students made up for people was just like a bubble. Eventually it would disappear.,